Wagner should be glad that he is dead."

"Wagner? Who is Wagner?" inquired Mr. Ryan.

"No one, no one!" replied Von Barwig, shaking his head, "he did not
belong to the Union----"

"Then he's a scab," remarked Mr. Ryan.

Von Barwig looked at him and burst out laughing, the laughter of
despair. Pinac and Fico looked at each other. Von Barwig's laugh
grated harshly on their ears; they did not like to see their beloved
friend act in that manner. Pinac touched him gently on the arm and
looked appealingly at him. Von Barwig nodded, then rising from his
chair, with his habitual gentleness, suggested that the interview was
at an end. Messrs. Schwarz and Ryan bowed themselves out and the four
friends were left there alone with their misery.

Von Barwig turned to his friends. It was for them that his heart bled,
for they had resigned their positions at his request. For the first
time since their friendship he had been the cause of misfortune coming
to them. He felt it more than all the disappointments that he had
experienced during his stay in America. "I am accursed," he thought,
"doomed always to disappointments, and I am now a curse to others, to
those I love." He tried to tell them how grieved he was at their
misfortune, but they would not allow him to apologise, so he sat down
in his old armchair and tried to smoke, but he could not. His heart
was as heavy as lead. They saw this and they felt for him; they felt
his sufferings more than they did their own.

"We have resign from the _cafe_, yes, but we are glad, damn glad," said
Pinac, lying like a true Gallic gentleman. "Von Barwig, I tell you we
are deuced damn glad," he repeated with emphasis.

Von Barwig silently shook his hand and smiled.

"I said to hell with the _cafe_--I say it now!" ejaculated Fico. "The
_cafe_ to hell, and many of him!"

"My beautiful 'cello is wasted in that food hole," said Poons to Von
Barwig in German, then he laughed and told him a funny story that he
had read that day in the _Fliegende Blaetter_. He did his best to make
the old man laugh with him, but Von Barwig only smiled sadly. He did
not speak; his heart was too heavy.

"It won't last long! You see, it won't last long!" said Pinac, again
trying to comfort him. "Come, boys, we go upstairs and play. We play
for you, Anton, eh?"

Von Barwig made no reply. The men looked at each other significantly
and tried to cheer him up by striking up a song and marching a