and skill, but the skeleton's complete and that's the end of it! If you
compare yourself with me, you have the advantage. True, you're nothing
extraordinary as a man, but in the art of shoe-making you're an
accomplished master. I, on the contrary--if I did not enjoy the
happiness of serving as a transition point for a better specimen, as it
were, a test of the real material--I should go out of the world without
having understood any reason for my existing in it. But let that be as
it may, we non-commissioned officers and privates in the great army of
mankind can bear ourselves bravely and win honor; and you in
particular, Herr Feyertag--a man in the prime of life, with property,
sense, and intelligence--do you know what I would do, if I were in your
place?"

"What, Herr Mohr?"

"Your good wife doesn't want to leave Berlin. Well then propose to
traverse Berlin itself with her. Go out every morning after breakfast
and visit some place, the Arsenal, the Museum, in short what every
Englishman sees, and in the evening attend the theatre, the zoological
garden, or what ever seems most attractive to you. We can only advance
by moving strictly in our own circle, and meantime keeping our eyes
open. In this way you'll in time climb far enough up the heights, and
yet remain what you are--a man who thoroughly understands his trade,
instead of, in your old age, becoming a bungler in the social-political
business, where there are too many bunglers now, and which only the
wisest heads can thoroughly comprehend."

"Hm!" replied the shoe-maker, "that's worth hearing, that's a very
sensible proposition. True, mother won't like it at first, but I'm
master of my own house, and if she once gets _in_--into a museum, I
mean--she's always had a clever head and by no means bad taste. I see
what you're aiming at, Herr Mohr: propagandism is all very well, but
where one has no idea, the mere will is of no avail, and, with my grey
hairs, to wander about like a journeyman on his travels--but, by the
way, my son-in-law--what do you think of him? Ought he, too, only to go
around in a circle and accumulate fat? Do you think him also a man of
mediocre ability, like ourselves?"

"Herr Feyertag," said Mohr with a perfectly immovable face, "don't you
know that a clever physician is always careful how he expresses his
opinion as to whether a person has a diseased liver or apoplexy, unless
he's specially consulted by the patient? You expressly asked my a