ve hurt my hand. How he will stare when he receives my letter!"

Karl spent the next few weeks with Anton. As soon as he could move his
hand, he took possession of the wardrobe of his friend, and began to
render him the little services that he had undertaken long ago in the
principal's house. Anton had some difficulty to prevent him from playing
the superfluous part of valet.

"There you are brushing my coat again," said he one day, going into
Karl's room. "You know I will not stand it."

"It was only to keep mine in countenance," said Karl, by way of excuse;
"two look so much better hanging together than one. Your coffee is
ready, but the coffee-pot is good for nothing, and always tastes of the
spirit of wine."

When he found that, as he said, he could be of no use to Anton, he began
to work on his own account. Owing to his old love of mechanics, he had
collected a quantity of tools of all sorts, and whenever Anton left the
house, he began such a sawing, boring, planing, and rasping, that even
the deaf old artillery officer, who was quartered in the neighboring
house, was under the impression that a carpenter had settled near him,
and sent a broken bedstead to be repaired. As Karl was still obliged to
spare his right hand, he used one tool after the other with the left,
and was as pleased as a child with the progress he made. And when the
surgeon forbade such exertions for a week to come, Karl began to write
with his left hand, and daily exhibited to Anton samples of his skill.
"Practice is all that is wanted," said he; "man has to discover what he
can do. As for that, writing with the hands at all is merely a habit; if
one had no hands, one would write with one's feet; and I even believe
that they are not essential, and that it could be managed with the
head."

"You are a foolish fellow," laughed Anton.

"I do assure you," continued Karl, "that with a long reed held in the
mouth, with two threads fastened to the ears to lessen the shaking, one
might get on very tolerably. There is the setting of your keyhole come
off; we'll glue that on in no time."

"I wonder that it does not stick of itself," said Anton, "for a most
horrible smell of glue comes from your room. The whole atmosphere is
impregnated with glue."

"God forbid!" said Karl; "what I have is perfectly scentless glue--a new
invention."

When this true-hearted man set out homeward, with his dismission in his
pocket, Anton felt as if he himself then f