oll and realised that the recital was imminent. Dorothea had of
course the enunciation of one of her age. When through, Herr Carovius
said: "Honestly, it would never have occurred to me that such a little
toad could croak so beautifully."

Though the man knew so little about women that it would be perilous to
attempt to measure his ignorance of them, he nevertheless felt, as he
looked into Marguerite's radiant face, a certain disappointment in
life--a disappointment which he would try at once to benumb but which
delighted him.

IV

About this time Herr Becker died. He was the senior city official, and
had been living in the second story of the apartment for twenty-eight
years. Dr. Benda moved in at once with his mother.

Carovius told all about this at the reserved table in the Crocodile. His
companions were in a position to tell him a great deal more about the
ancestry and past life of the Bendas. They were said to have been very
rich once, to have lost their money in the great panic, and to be living
at present in quite moderate circumstances. Benda's father was said to
have shot himself, and his mother was reported to have taken the boy to
school every morning. Solicitor Korn had been told that, despite his
youth, Dr. Benda had written a number of scientific books on biology,
but that this had not enabled him to reach his desired goal.

"What goal?" the table companions asked in unison.

"Why, he wanted to be made a professor, but people had objected." Why
had they objected? came the question from more than one throat. "Well,
you see it was this way: the man is a Jew, and the authorities are not
going to appoint a Jew to an official position in a university without
raising objections. That is to be taken as a matter of course." That
this was in very truth to be taken as a matter of course was also the
opinion of Herr Carovius, who, however, insisted that Benda didn't
exactly look like a Jew; he looked more like a tolerably fat Dutchman.
He was in truth not quite blond, but he was not dark either, and his
nose was as straight as a rule.

"That is just the point: that's the Jewish trick," remarked the Judge,
and took a mighty draught from his beer glass. "In olden times," he
said, "the Jews all had the yellow spots, aquiline noses, and hair like
bushmen. But to-day no Christian can be certain who is Jew and who is
Gentile." To this the whole table agreed.

Herr Carovius at o