l
and asked him what he wanted. In a somewhat rude voice and with an
unsteady gesture, Daniel made it clear to him that he wished to buy the
mask. The caster removed it from the door, laid it on the counter, and
named his price. He looked at the shabby clothing of the newly arrived
customer, concluded at once that the price, ten marks, would be more
than he could afford, and turned again to Dr. Benda, so that Daniel
might have time to make up his mind.

The two conversed for quite a while. When the caster finally turned
around, he was not a little surprised to see that Daniel was still
standing at the counter. He stood there in fact with half closed eyes,
his left hand lying on the face of the mask. The caster exchanged a
somewhat dazed glance with Dr. Benda, who, in a moment of forewarning
sympathy, grasped the situation perfectly in which the stranger found
himself. Dr. Benda somehow understood, owing to his instinct for
appreciation of unusual predicaments, the man's poverty, his isolation,
and even the ardour of his wish. Subduing as well as he might the
feeling of ordinary reserve, he stepped up to Daniel, and said to him
calmly, quietly, seriously, and without the slightest trace of
condescension: "If you will permit me to advance you the money for the
mask, you will do me a substantial favor."

Daniel gritted his teeth--just a little. His face turned to a greenish
hue. But the face of his would-be friend, schooled in affairs of the
spirit, showed a winning trace of human kindness. It conquered Daniel;
it made him gentle. He submitted. Dr. Benda laid the money for the mask
on the counter, and Daniel was as silent as the tomb.

When they left the shop, Daniel held the mask under his arm so tightly
that the paper wrapping was crushed, if the mask itself was not. The sad
state of his clothing and his haggard appearance in general struck Dr.
Benda at once and forcibly. He needed to ask but a few well chosen
questions to get at the underlying cause of this misery, physical and
spiritual, in human form. He pretended that he had not lunched and
invited Daniel to be his guest at the inn at the sign of the Grape.

Daniel felt that his soul had suddenly been unlocked by a magic key. At
last--he had ears and could hear, eyes and could see. It seemed to him
that he had come up to earth from out of some lightless, subterranean
cavern. And when they separated he had a friend.

THE NERO OF TO