inz. If you can't stop
fidgeting, get up."

He had gone, before she finished speaking; for a slight stir in the
next room made them suppose for a moment that Schilsky was arriving.
Afterwards, Krafft was to be seen straying about, with his hands in his
pockets; and, on observing his rose-pink cheeks and tumbled curly hair,
Madeleine could not refrain from remarking: "He ought to have been a
girl."

The air was already hot, by reason of the lamps, and the many breaths,
and the firmly shut double-windows. The clamour for beer had become
universal by the time Adolfchen arrived with his arms full of bottles.
As there were not enough glasses to go round, every two or three
persons shared one between them--a proceeding that was carried out with
much noisy mirth. Above all other voices was to be heard that of Miss
Jensen, who, in a speckled yellow dress, with a large feather fan in
her hand, sat in the middle of the front row of seats. It was she who
directed how the beer should be apportioned; she advised a few
late-comers where they would still find room, and engaged Furst to
place the lights on the piano to better advantage. Next her, a Mrs.
Lautenschlager, a plump little American lady, with straight yellow hair
which hung down on her shoulders, was relating to her neighbour on the
other side, in a tone that could be clearly heard in both rooms, how
she had "discovered" her voice.

"I come to Schwarz, last fall," she said shaking back her hair, and
making effective use of her babyish mouth; "and he thinks no end of me.
But the other week I was sick, and as I lay in bed, I sung some--just
for fun. And my landlady--she's a regular singer herself--who was
fixing up the room, she claps her hands together and says: 'My goodness
me! Why YOU have a voice!' That's what put it in my head, and I went to
Sperling to hear what he'd got to say. He was just tickled to death, I
guess he was, and he's going to make something dandy of it, so I stop
long enough. I don't know what my husband'll say though. When I wrote
him I was sick, he says: 'Come home and be sick at home'--that's what
he says."

Miss Jensen could not let pass the opportunity of breaking a lance for
her own master, the Swede, and of cutting up Sperling's method, which
she denounced as antiquated. She made quite a little speech, in the
course of which she now and then interrupted herself to remind
Furst--who, was as soft as a pudding before her--of something he had
for