d thing to quarrel with Haase!"

I made a point of keeping on the right side of the landlord after that.
By my unfailing diligence I even managed to secure his grudging
approval, though he was always ready to fly into a passion at the least
opportunity.

One evening about six o'clock a young man, whom I had never seen among
our regular customers, came down the stairs from the street and asked
for Haase, who was asleep on the sofa in the inner room. At the sight of
the youth, Frau Hedwig jumped off her perch behind the bar and vanished.
She came back directly and, ignoring me, conducted the young man into
the inner room, where he remained for about half an hour. Then he
reappeared again, accompanied by Frau Hedwig, and went off.

I was shocked by the change in the appearance of the woman. Her face was
pale, her eyes red with weeping, and her eyes kept wandering towards the
door. It was a slack time of the day within and the cellar was free of
customers.

"You look poorly, Frau Hedwig," I said. "Trouble with Haase again?"

She looked up at me and shook her head, her eyes brimming over. A tear
ran down the rouge on her cheek.

"I must speak," she said. "I can't bear this suspense alone. You are a
kind young man. You are discreet. Julius, there is trouble brewing for
us!"

"What do you mean?" I asked. A foreboding of evil rose within me.

"Kore!" she whispered.

"Kore?" I echoed. "What of him?"

She looked fearfully about her.

"He was taken yesterday morning," she said.

"Do you mean arrested?" I exclaimed, unwilling to believe the staggering
news.

"They entered his apartment early in the morning and seized him in bed.
Ach! it is dreadful!" And she buried her face in her hands.

"But surely," I added soothingly, though with an icy fear at my heart,
"there is no need to despair. What is an arrest to-day with all these
regulations...."

The woman raised her face, pallid beneath its paint, to mine.

"Kore was shot at Moabit Prison this morning," she said in a low voice.
"That young man brought the news just now." Then she added breathlessly,
her words pouring out in a torrent:

"You don't know what this means to us. Haase had dealings with this Jew.
If they have shot him, it is because they have found out from him all
they want to know. That means our ruin, that means that Haase will go
the same way as the Jew.

"But Haase is stubborn, foolhardy. The messenger warned him that a raid
might be expected