or his civility. I was more and more taken with
him, and grew all of a sudden extremely anxious to make a favourable
impression on this person. I took a turn towards the door and then back
again to the counter as if I had forgotten something. It struck me that
I owed him an explanation, that I ought to elucidate matters a little.
I began to hum in order to attract his attention. Then, taking the
pencil in my hand, I held it up and said:

"It would never have entered my head to come such a long way for any
and every bit of pencil, but with this one it was quite a different
matter; there Was another reason, a special reason. Insignificant as it
looked, this stump of pencil had simply made me what I was in the
world, so to say, placed me in life." I said no more. The man had come
right over to the counter.

"Indeed!" said he, and he looked inquiringly at me.

"It was with this pencil," I continued, in cold blood, "that I wrote my
dissertation on 'Philosophical Cognition,' in three volumes." Had he
never heard mention of it?

Well, he did seem to remember having heard the name, rather the title.

"Yes," said I, "that was by me, so it was." So he must really not be
astonished that I should be desirous of having the little bit of pencil
back again. I valued it far too highly to lose it; why, it was almost
as much to me as a little human creature. For the rest I was honestly
grateful to him for his civility, and I would bear him in mind for it.
Yes, truly, I really would. A promise was a promise; that was the sort
of man I was, and he really deserved it. "Good-bye!" I walked to the
door with the bearing of one who had it in his power to place a man in
a high position, say in the fire-office. The honest pawnbroker bowed
twice profoundly to me as I withdrew. I turned again and repeated my
good-bye.

On the stairs I met a woman with a travelling-bag in her hand, who
squeezed diffidently against the wall to make room for me, and I
voluntarily thrust my hand in my pocket for something to give her, and
looked foolish as I found nothing and passed on with my head down. I
heard her knock at the office door; there was an alarm over it, and I
recognized the jingling sound it gave when any one rapped on the door
with his knuckles.

The sun stood in the south; it was about twelve. The whole town began
to get on its legs as it approached the fashionable hour for
promenading. Bowing and laughing folk walked up and down Carl Johann