or
cleverer man than Karl in all the Rhine Province.

"But things seemed to be going badly enough with Karl at the
University. Herr Heinrich Marx cried in our little shop one evening
when my father asked him how Karl was doing. He said that, instead of
studying hard to be a Doctor of Laws, as he ought to do, Karl was
wasting his time. 'He writes such foolish letters that I am ashamed of
him,' said the old man. 'Wastes his time writing silly verses and
romances and then destroying most of them; talks about becoming a
second Goethe, and says he will write the great Prussian drama that
will revive dramatic art. He spends more money than the sons of the
very rich, and I fear that he has got into bad company and formed evil
habits.'

"Then father spoke up. 'Don't be afraid,' he said. 'I'll wager that
Karl is all right, and that he will do credit to the old town yet.
Some of our greatest men have failed to pass their examinations in the
universities you know, Herr Marx, while some of the most brilliant
students have done nothing worthy of note after leaving the
universities crowned with laurels. There is nothing bad about Karl, of
that you may be sure.'

"The old man could hardly speak. He took father's hand and shook it
heartily: 'May it be so, friend Wilhelm, may it be so,' he said. I
never saw the old man again, for soon after that he died.

"Karl came home that Easter, looking pale and worn and thin. I was
shocked when he came to see me, so grave and sad was he. We went over
to the old Roman ruins, and he talked about his plans. He had given up
all hopes of being a great poet then and wanted to get a Doctor's
degree and become a Professor at the University. I reminded him of the
verses he wrote about some of the boys at school, and about the old
teacher, Herr von Holst, and we laughed like two careless boys. He
stood upon a little mound and recited the verses all over as though
they had been written only the week before. Ach, he looked grand that
night in the beautiful moonlight!

"Then came his father's death, and I did not see him again, except as
the funeral passed by. He went back to Berlin to the University, and I
went soon after that away from home for my wanderjahre, and for a
long time heard nothing about Karl.

II

"Two or three years after that I was working in Cologne, where I had a
sweetheart, when I read in a paper, the _Rhenische Zeitung_, that
there would be a democratic meeting. I liked the de