,
impenetrable personality. Even if his years--he was forty-five--had not
won for him a measure of esteem, the malicious and mordant scorn he
heaped on his fellow-men would have done so. People said he had a good
deal of money. If this was brought to his attention, he employed the
most ghastly oaths in asserting his poverty. But since he had neither
calling nor profession and spent his days in unqualified idleness, it
was apparent that his assertions on this point were wholly unfounded,
and this despite the virility of his unconventional language.

"Say, tell me, who is that lanky quack there?" asked Herr Carovius,
pointing to Daniel and looking at Schwalbe the sculptor. He had known
Daniel for a long while, but every now and then it gave him a peculiar
kind of pleasure to play the role of the newcomer.

The sculptor looked at him indignantly.

"That is a man who still has faith in himself," he remarked rather
morosely. "He is a man who has bathed in the dragon blood of illusions,
and has become as invulnerable as Young Siegfried. He is convinced that
the people who sleep in the houses around this part of town dream of his
future greatness, and have already placed an order with the green-grocer
for his laurel wreath. He has not the faintest idea that the only thing
that is sacred to them is their midday meal, that they are ready to
drink their beer at the first stroke of the gong, and to yawn when the
light appears on Mount Sinai. He is completely taken up with himself; he
is sufficient unto himself; and he gathers honey. The bee will have its
honey, and if it is unable to get it from the flowers, it buzzes about
the dung heap. As is evidently the case here. _Prosit_ Nothafft," he
said in conclusion, and lifted his glass to Daniel.

Herr Carovius smiled in his usual languishing fashion. "Nothafft," he
bleated, "Nothafft, Nothafft, that is a fine name, but not exactly one
that is predestined to a niche in Walhalla. It strikes me as being
rather more appropriate for the sign of a tailor. Good Lord! The bones
the young people gnaw at to-day were covered with meat in my time."

And then, clasping his glasses a bit firmer onto his nose, he riveted
his blinking, squinting eyes on the door. Eberhard von Auffenberg,
elegant, slender, and disgruntled, entered to find life where others
were throwing it away.

It was far into the night when the brethren went home. As they passed
along through the streets they bellowed their