e quiet room remained at silent as the two had been
before.

Who knows whether they would have found their tongues as speedily, if
Mohr had not appeared again. He had found lodgings and came to get his
traveling bag. He entered with a very bright face, but drew down his
under lip when he perceived Franzelius. After a few disagreeable
quarrels they had carefully avoided each other, as their natures
necessarily could not harmonise: Mohr, who with cynical frankness,
confessed that he always thought only of himself, and Reinhold, the
philanthropist, who never considered his own advantage and
unhesitatingly sacrificed to his ideal dreams the small degree of
comfort he might have procured.

"Why," said Mohr, nodding carelessly to the young printer, "is Bruin
here too? Well, how fares the regeneration of mankind? I should think
that since the foundation of the artificial hatching establishments, we
had advanced considerably nearer to the ideal state when every one will
have a chicken in his Sunday pot."

"I--I have no reply to make to such frivolous questions," muttered the
other in his beard.

"Still the same quarrelsome old chanticleers," laughed Edwin, closing
his book. "Do me the favor, children, not to begin to hiss at once, as
fat does when it meets fire. I'll put up with these wordy battles in
winter, when they may at least result in warming us. But in such
beautiful weather as this----"

"Hear, hear the wiseacre!" cried Mohr. "Well, then, to do honor to the
wonder that a philosopher has a clever, practical thought, I'll swear
to keep a truce for this evening. Come, let us smoke a cigar of peace
in one of the public gardens, for I'm worn out with hunting for
lodgings. But I've found what I wanted, a quiet neat little house only
ten doors from your 'tun,' kept by an old maid, who during the first
hour told me the story of her three broken engagements. So the day is
mine, and without neglecting any duty to humanity, I can devote it to
you and my thirst. So where shall we go? After being away three years,
I no longer know where to get good liquor."

"He is not yet familiar with the rules of the household," said Edwin,
glancing at Balder. "You must know, Heinz, that we never go out in the
evening, and remain at home still more regularly in the afternoon. The
stairs leading to our hen-roost are too steep for Balder, and as when
all three windows are open, we have no reason to complain of want of
air----"

"Merciful