winging the little stick that dominated the theatre-audience,
singers and players alike.

And the children, hanging over the high gallery, shuffling their
restless feet, thus had their path as dearly traced for them, their
destiny as surely sealed, as any fate-shackled heroes of antiquity.

* * * * *

Late one afternoon about this time, Franz might have been found
together with his friends Krafft and Schilsky, at the latter's lodging
in the TALSTRASSE. He was astride a chair, over the back of which he
had folded his arms; and his chubby, rubicund face glistened with
moisture.

In the middle of the room, at the corner of a bare deal table that was
piled with loose music and manuscript, Schilsky sat improving and
correcting the tails and bodies of hastily made, notes. He was still in
his nightshirt, over which he had thrown coat and trousers; and, wide
open at the neck, it exposed to the waist a skin of the dead whiteness
peculiar to red-haired people. His face, on the other hand, was sallow
and unfresh; and the reddish rims of the eyes, and the coarsely
self-indulgent mouth, contrasted strikingly with the general
youthfulness of his appearance. He had the true musician's head: round
as a cannon-ball, with a vast, bumpy forehead, on which the soft fluffy
hair began far back, and stood out like a nimbus. His eyes were either
desperately dreamy or desperately sharp, never normally attentive or at
rest; his blunted nose and chin were so short as to make the face look
top-heavy. A carefully tended young moustache stood straight out along
his cheeks. He had large, slender hands, and quick movements.

The air of the room was like a thin grey veiling, for all three puffed
hard at cigarettes. Without removing his from between his teeth,
Schilsky related an adventure of the night before. He spoke in jerks,
with a strong lisp, intent on what he was doing than on what he was
saying.

"Do you think he'd budge?" he asked in a thick, spluttery way. "Not he.
Till nearly two. And then I couldn't get him along. He thought it
wasn't eleven, and wanted to relieve himself at every corner. To
irritate an imaginary bobby. He disputed with them, too. Heavens, what
sport it was! At last I dragged him up here and got him on the sofa.
Off he rolls again. So I let him lie. He didn't disturb me."

Heinrich Krafft, the hero of the episode lay on the short,
uncomfortable sofa, with the table-cover for a blanket. In answer to
Schilsky, he