te of the case, make personal inquiries about the people, and step
in where help was necessary and deserved.

Only now did he learn what life really was, and what he saw neither
increased his pleasure in being alive nor made him proud to be a man
among men. Needless to say, it was not long before the news reached the
circles of the professional beggars that there was a gentleman in the
Dorotheenstrasse who had a considerable yearly sum of money to give
away. The result was that his modest apartment was so besieged by
petitioners that his old landlady, Frau Muller, the widow of a
post-office official, with whom he had boarded and lodged for seven
years, was goaded to desperation, and declared that if the disgraceful
rabble was encouraged she would be obliged to part from Wilhelm, though
it would be her death, she being so fond of him and so used to his
ways. Wilhelm was wise enough to admit the justice of her complaint,
and empowered Frau Muller to turn away ruthlessly all such visitors
whose names were unknown to her, or who came without recommendation,
which orders she carried out with such virulence and relentlessness,
that the worshipful company of professional beggars rapidly came to the
conclusion that it was useless trying to gain admittance to Dr.
Eynhardt as long as he was guarded by the tall, bony old lady who
opened the door but would not leave hold of it. So the unceasing tramp
of dirty boots on the echoing stair was hushed, and Wilhelm saw no more
of the crape-clad widows of eminent officials who required a sewing
machine or a piano to save them from starvation; the gentlemen who
would be forced to put a bullet through their brains if they did not
procure the money to pay a debt of honor; or the unemployed clerks who
had eaten nothing for days, and who all had a sick wife and from six to
twelve children (all small) at home crying for bread; or the foreigners
who could find no work in Berlin, and would return to their native
countries if he would give them a few thalers to pay their fourth-class
railway fare; and similar interesting persons, the endless diversity of
whose life-histories had kept him in a chronic state of surprise for
months. In place of the visitors he now received letters, as many as if
he had been a cabinet minister. It was the same old story, only less
affecting, because generally deficient in style, and faulty as to
spelling, and no longer illustrated by tearful, vigorously mopped eyes,
a