people."

"Oh, they like it!" said Courvoisier; and Karl stared. "Girls don't
object to a little bullying; anything rather than be left quite alone,"
Courvoisier went on, tranquilly.

"Girls!" ejaculated Karl.

"You mean the young ladies in the chorus, don't you?" asked Courvoisier,
unmovedly. "He does bully them, I don't deny; but they come back again."

"Oh, I see!" said Karl, accepting the rebuff.

He had not referred to the young ladies of the chorus.

"Have you heard von Francius play?" he began next.

"_Natuerlich!_"

"What do you think of it?"

"I think it is superb!" said Courvoisier.

Baffled again, Karl was silent.

"The power and the daring of it are grand," went on Eugen, heartily. "I
could listen to him for hours. To see him seat himself before the piano,
as if he were sitting down to read a newspaper, and do what he does,
without moving a muscle, is simply superb--there's no other word. Other
men may play the piano; he takes the key-board and plays with it, and it
says what he likes."

I looked at him, and was satisfied. He found the same want in von
Francius' "superb" manipulation that I did--the glitter of a diamond,
not the glow of a fire.

Karl had not the subtlety to retort, "Ay, but does it say what we like?"
He subsided again, merely giving a meek assent to the proposition, and
saying, suggestively:

"He's not liked, though he is such a popular fellow."

"The public is often a great fool."

"Well, but you can't expect it to kiss the hand that slaps it in the
face, as von Francius does," said Karl, driven to metaphor, probably for
the first time in his life, and seeming astonished at having discovered
a hitherto unknown mental property pertaining to himself.

Courvoisier laughed.

"I'm certain of one thing: von Francius will go on slapping the public's
face. I won't say how it will end; but it would not surprise me in the
least to see the public at his feet, as it is now at those of--"

"Humph!" said Karl, reflectively.

He did not stay much longer, but having finished his cigar, rose. He
seemed to feel very apologetic, and out of the fullness of his heart his
mouth spake.

"I really wouldn't have intruded if I had known--"

"Known what?" inquired Eugen, with well-assumed surprise.

"I thought you were just by yourselves, you know, and--"

"So we are; but we can do with other society. Friedel here gets very
tedious sometimes--in fact, _langweilig_. Come again, _nicht wa