-day, since
the dissipation of the previous night and the fact of its being Sunday
condemned him to idleness, he determined to fulfill at length the duty
he owed to civility. Moreover, he had begun the day before to take a
great interest in Elfinger, and wished very much to have an hour's more
intimate talk with him.

Luckily he chanced, at his first attempt, to knock at the right door,
although, on account of the absolute darkness on the upper landing, it
was impossible to make out the names; and, upon entering, he saw
Elfinger jump up hastily from a chair, where he had been sitting
apparently entirely unoccupied.

As the street, which was not especially lively even on a weekday,
reposed to-day in the most profound Sunday quiet, Felix wondered
what it could have been that had held his attention there, especially
when he noticed that the actor, who was generally so ready and
self-possessed, showed evident signs of embarrassment as he hastened
forward to welcome him, and, as if to keep him away from the window,
forced him to take a seat upon the sofa.

But he soon recovered his easy bearing again.

"You are looking at the walls," said he, "and are wondering that I
still preserve these mementoes of my stage days, these pictures of
great actors and my pretty colleagues of the fair sex, and even the
obligatory laurel-wreath, with its satin ribbons, that is never lacking
in any true actor's domicile. If my present employer should ever by
chance condescend to visit his clerk, I should, it is true, have done
far better had I hung up a bulletin of the stock boards instead of the
lithograph of Seydelmann as _Mephistophiles_. But, as I am safe up here
from all _haute finance_, I think I may be allowed, without injury to
my reputation as a sound accountant, to surround myself with all those
relics that I hold sacred, even that all-too-flaming sword over there,
that drove me from my paradise of the footlights."

He pointed to a rapier that hung on the wall opposite the sofa,
arranged with a few pistols and fencing-gloves in the form of a trophy,
underneath which hung a picture in water colors representing Elfinger
in the costume of _Hamlet_.

"Yes," he continued, with a quiet smile; "if the point of that sword
had not slipped in the hands of an unskillful _Laertes_, and entered
the eye of the unfortunate _Hamlet_, I should hardly have had the
pleasure of seeing you in my chambers just at this particular moment. I
should pro