,
look at that damned thing over there!"

I said: "What damned thing?"

"Why, that thing," said George; "look at it! There is the same horse
with half a tail, standing on its hind legs; the same man without his
hat; the same--"

Harris said: "You are talking now about the statue we saw in the
Ringplatz."

"No, I'm not," replied George; "I'm talking about the statue over there."

"What statue?" said Harris.

George looked at Harris; but Harris is a man who might, with care, have
been a fair amateur actor. His face merely expressed friendly sorrow,
mingled with alarm. Next, George turned his gaze on me. I endeavoured,
so far as lay with me, to copy Harris's expression, adding to it on my
own account a touch of reproof.

"Will you have a cab?" I said as kindly as I could to George. "I'll run
and get one."

"What the devil do I want with a cab?" he answered, ungraciously. "Can't
you fellows understand a joke? It's like being out with a couple of
confounded old women," saying which, he started off across the bridge,
leaving us to follow.

"I am so glad that was only a joke of yours," said Harris, on our
overtaking him. "I knew a case of softening of the brain that began--"

"Oh, you're a silly ass!" said George, cutting him short; "you know
everything."

He was really most unpleasant in his manner.

We took him round by the riverside of the theatre. We told him it was
the shortest way, and, as a matter of fact, it was. In the open space
behind the theatre stood the second of these wooden apparitions. George
looked at it, and again stood still.

"What's the matter?" said Harris, kindly. "You are not ill, are you?"

"I don't believe this is the shortest way," said George.

"I assure you it is," persisted Harris.

"Well, I'm going the other," said George; and he turned and went, we, as
before, following him.

Along the Ferdinand Strasse Harris and I talked about private lunatic
asylums, which, Harris said, were not well managed in England. He said a
friend of his, a patient in a lunatic asylum--

George said, interrupting: "You appear to have a large number of friends
in lunatic asylums."

He said it in a most insulting tone, as though to imply that that is
where one would look for the majority of Harris's friends. But Harris
did not get angry; he merely replied, quite mildly:

"Well, it really is extraordinary, when one comes to think of it, how
many of them have gone that way sooner or