hundering,
ear-splitting, overhead noises heard nowadays were not yet in
existence. Still it was noisy, a perfect bedlam of jabbering
foreigners, who crowded this busiest of busy streets as they crowded no
other section of this cosmopolitan city. Von Barwig, usually so
sensitive to noises, apparently did not notice this babel. Curiously
enough his thoughts were miles away from New York, and the idea that he
was going to sell his violin to buy a breakfast was not borne in upon
him with sufficient force to prevent his thinking of something else.
Although it was very cold he did not notice the weather, so he did not
walk fast. His progress was a mechanical movement, for in fancy he was
in Leipsic again, walking down the August Platz. It was a pleasant day
dream, one from which Von Barwig did not like to awaken himself. He
pictured to himself the joy, the happiness of his loved ones when they
saw him, and thus he felt the reflex of this joy. These mental
pictures were almost real to him, and he enjoyed them while they
lasted, though he knew that they were not real.

"It is better to dream than to think of the present," he said to
himself. "What is there going on about me but misery and starvation
and folly? Why should I focus my mind on the evils of existence,
analyse them, make them my bosom companions to the exclusion of all
joy? No, I will think of those things that make for happiness. Little
Helene shall be my companion. These shadows" (and he looked at the
people who passed him), "these caricatures of life shall not find a
place in my mind. I will shut them out and in that way they shall
cease to exist for me; since what we do not know cannot make us suffer."

Von Barwig walked down the crowded thoroughfare, barely conscious that
he was dreaming, yet in his dreams finding peace. The old man knew
that there was a musical instrument shop somewhere in the
neighbourhood, but it is quite possible that he would have passed it by
had not the sound of a loud, roaring voice, accompanied by the banging
of a big drum, attracted, or rather demanded his attention and aroused
him from his day dream.

"Eat 'em alive, eat 'em alive!" bellowed the voice. Bang! bang! went
the drum. "Bosco, Bosco, the armless wonder," bang! bang! "bites their
heads off and eats their bodies; eats 'em alive, eats 'em alive!" Bang!
bang! "Bosco, Bosco!" the drum punctuating each phrase, making a
hideous, ear-splitting duet.

"What hell