ers at any time; the only man who
sat and smoked with us in an evening. At the time when Karl put in his
first appearance in these pages he was a young man not only not
particular, but utterly reckless as to the society he frequented. Any
one, he was wont to say, was good enough to talk with, or to listen
while talked to. Karl's conversation could not be called either affected
or pedantic; his taste was catholic, and comprised within wide bounds;
he considered all subjects that were amusing appropriate matter of
discussion, and to him most subjects were--or were susceptible of being
made--amusing.

Latterly, however, it would seem that a process of growth had been going
on in him. Three years had worked a difference. In some respects he was,
thank Heaven! still the old Karl--the old careless, reckless, aimless
fellow; but in others he was metamorphosed.

Karl Linders, a handsome fellow himself and a slave to beauty, as he was
careful to inform us--susceptible in the highest degree to real
loveliness--so he often told us--and in love on an average, desperately
and forever, once a week, had at last fallen really and actually in
love.

For a long time we did not guess it--or rather, accepting his being in
love as a chronic state of his being--one of the "inseparable
accidents," which may almost be called qualities, we wondered what lay
at the bottom of his sudden intense sobriety of demeanor and propriety
of conduct, and looked for some cause deeper than love, which did not
usually have that effect upon him; we thought it might be debt. We
studied the behavior itself; we remarked that for upward of ten days he
had never lauded the charms of any young woman connected with the choral
or terpsichorean staff of the opera, and wondered.

We saw that he had had his hair very much cut, and we told him frankly
that we did not think it improved him. To our great surprise he told us
that we knew nothing about it, and requested us to mind our own
business, adding testily, after a pause, that he did not see why on
earth a set of men like us should make ourselves conspicuous by the
fashion of our hair, as if we were Absaloms or Samsons.

"Samson had a Delilah, _mein lieber_," said I, eying him. "She shore his
locks for him. Tell us frankly who has acted the part by you."

"Bah! Can a fellow have no sense in his own head to find such things
out? Go and do likewise, and I can tell you you'll be improved."

But we agreed when he w