re the events
by which the course of our lives is shapen. A look we catch at parting,
a word spoken that might have passed unheard, a pressure of the hand
that might or might not have been felt, and straightway all our sailing
orders are revoked, and instead of north we go south. Bearing this in
mind, my reader will perhaps forgive me, and at least bethink him that
these things are not done by me through inadvertence, but of intention
and with forethought.

"So we are about to part," said Hanserl to me, as I awoke and found my
old companion at my bedside. "You 're the twenty-fifth that has left
me," said he, mournfully. "But look to it, Knabe, change is not always
betterment."

"It was none of _my_ doing, Hanserl; none of _my_ seeking."

"If you had worn the gray jacket you wear on Sundays, there would have
been none of this, lad! I have seen double as many years in the yard as
you have been in the world, and none have ever seen me at the master's
table or waltzing with the master's daughter."

I could not help smiling, in spite of myself, at the thought of such a
spectacle.

"Nor is there need to laugh because I speak of dancing," said he,
quickly. "They could tell you up in Kleptowitz there are worse
performers than Hans Spouer; and if he is not an Englishman, he is an
honest Austrian!"

This he said with a sort of defiance, and as if he expected a reply.

"I have told you already, Hans," said I, soothingly, "that it was none
of my seeking if I am to be transferred from the yard. I was very happy
there,--very happy to be with you. We were good comrades in the past, as
I hope we may be good friends in the future."

"That can scarcely be," said he, sorrowfully. "I can have no friend in
the man I must say 'sir' to. It's Herr Ignaz's order," went he on, "he
sent for me this morning, and said, 'Hanserl, when you address Herr
von Owen,'--aye, he said Herr _von_ Owen,--'never forget he is your
superior; and though he once worked with you here in the yard, that was
his caprice, and he will do so no more."

"But, Hans, my dear old friend."

"Ja, ja," said he, waving his hand. "Jetzt ist aus! It is all over now.
Here's your reckoning," and he laid a slip of paper on the bed: "Twelve
gulden for the dinners, three-fifty for wine and beer, two gulden for
the wash. There were four kreutzers for the girl with the guitar;
you bade me give her ten, but four was plenty,--that makes
seventeen-six-and-sixty: and you've twent