little," he remarked with a titter, "a
little."

"Very well; if you will loan me ten thousand marks, it will give me
great pleasure to make you a present of the crown on my handkerchief,"
said Eberhard von Auffenberg.

Herr Carovius stopped stock still, and opened his mouth and his eyes:
"Baron, you are taking the liberty of jesting with me." But when
Eberhard indicated that he was quite serious, Carovius continued, blank
amazement forcing his voice to its highest pitch: "But my dear Sir, your
father has an income of half a million. A mere income! The tax receipts
show it."

"Well, I am not talking about my father," said Eberhard coldly, and once
more threw his chin in the air. "It is evidently a part of your heraldic
prejudices to feel that you can coax the income of my father into my own
pockets."

They were standing under a gas lamp at the Haller Gate. It was dripping
rain, and they had raised their umbrellas. It was perfectly still; it
was also late. Not a human being was to be seen anywhere. Carovius
looked at the seriously offended young man, the young man looked at
Carovius, then grinning a grin of embarrassment, and neither knew how to
take the other.

"You are surprised," said Eberhard, resuming the conversation. "You are
surprised, and I don't blame you. I am a discontented guest in my own
skin; that much I can assure you. I am as abortive a creature as ever
was born. I inherited far too much that is superfluous, and not nearly
enough of the necessities. There are all manner of mysteries about me;
but they are on the outside. Within there is nothing but stale, dead
air."

He stared at the ground as though he were talking to himself, and as
though he had forgotten that any one was listening, and continued: "Have
you ever seen old knights carved in stone in old churches? If you have,
you have seen me. I feel as if I were the father of my father, and as if
he had had me buried alive, and an evil spirit had turned me to stone,
and my hands were lying crossed over my breast and could not move. I
grew up with a sister, and I see her as though it were yesterday"--at
this point his face took on an expression of fantastic senility--"walking
through the hall, proud, dainty, innocent, with roses in her hand. She
is married to a captain of cavalry, a fellow who treats his men like
Negro slaves, and who never returns the greeting of a civilian unless he
is drunk. She had to marry him. I could not prevent it. Someb