in spite of all this, he had just taken the most audacious step of his
life, with the deliberate intention of doing something at the same time
chivalrous and practical. He, who barely lived from hand to mouth, had
seriously appeared as a suitor in the house of a worthy citizen of the
good old Munich type, entirely incapable of taking a joke in such a
matter. Why matters had been pushed to such an extreme in this
particular case, he himself would have found it hard to say. For a long
time the affair had run the usual course; first, stolen glances were
interchanged from window to window, across the narrow alley; then came
the first tributes of homage in the shape of little notes in verse,
surreptitiously delivered, and flowery contributions to the Munich
daily paper, the _Latest News_. These effusions were accompanied by
much lurking about the streets, which eventually resulted in the
formation of the desired acquaintance, and ended in a bold confession
of love under the "dark arches" of the Marienplatz. With all her
blushing and laughing, and nods and glances, the dear child had managed
to draw the line so skillfully that she appeared to refuse his
attentions as little as she appeared to encourage them. She treated the
whole matter as a joke, as something to be laughed over, but never for
one moment to be regarded in a serious light. That the good-looking,
dashing, gallant painter found favor in the eyes of his pretty neighbor
could not be exactly denied. She even went so far once as to entreat
him to keep up his flute practice diligently. She never fell asleep so
comfortably as when he was sending forth some really heartrending
melody. For the rest she knew very well what to expect of artists, and
she had no doubt but what he had copied the beautiful poems he had
addressed to her from some book or other.

Rosenbusch felt himself rather flattered than hurt by these doubts; but
still this did not advance matters at all, and his dramatic instinct
for fresh excitement and change of action was almost in danger of
lagging a little, when it received an unexpected impulse from another
quarter. He discovered a secret that heretofore had been guarded more
carefully than his own; this was the hopeless love that his next-door
neighbor, Elfinger, entertained for the sister of his sweetheart.

He felt at once that it was incumbent upon his honor for him to do
something which should release them both from this state of unmanly
submis