d, nodded to his
friend with a comical expression of misery and despair, and dragged
Felix with him from the room.

On the stairs he suddenly stood still and said, in a suppressed and
mysterious voice:

"Our friend up-stairs has the same trouble worse than I have. He is
smitten with the other one; but she is a little saint, as much of a
nun, thanks to her education with the English sisters, as my little
witch is a child of the world for the same reason. Now just conceive of
it, the more my little imp carries on--it will be hard work making a
sensible housewife of her--the more zealously does our good Fanny
confess and do penance and pray, and it really looks as if she were
seriously intent upon gaining a saint's halo. The fact is the girls
never associate with sensible people, and for that reason one of us
must sacrifice himself so that the ice will at last be broken, although
I confess it is pure madness on my part to think of marrying. You have
no idea, my dear friend, what extraordinary cobwebs gather in an old
Munich burgherhouse like this. Well, a few fresh fellows like us--I
imagine it would not take us long to bring new life into it, if we were
only once inside!"

He sighed, and appeared not to be in the most courageous mood,
notwithstanding his brave words. Felix accompanied him across the
street and saw him enter the narrow, arched door next to the glove
store, which was closed on account of its being Sunday--going in with
an assumed air of boldness, as if he were going to a dance.

Then he himself wandered aimlessly down the street. In what direction
should he turn his steps? In the whole city there was no one who would
be looking for him to-day, and the one to whom he felt most drawn was,
strangely enough, on Sunday afternoons farther out of his reach than at
any other time.

He was deliberating whether he should not hire a horse again and dash
away across the country, when companionship was unexpectedly thrown in
his way, of a kind that a man in his frame of mind could not but
welcome.

CHAPTER IX.

His way led him along the Dultplatz, past the beer-garden in which he
had sat with his friends on his first Sunday in Munich. The music was
playing as before, but the people sat about under the lanterns, that
had just been lighted, in rather a sleepy and listless way, for the day
showed as yet no sign of growing cooler.

Near the fence that separated the garden fro