Meanwhile Hawermann was also walking up and down in his room hastily and restlessly. What prevented him telling his daughter and Mrs. Behrens all his hopes and expectations? It was because he feared to make them hope lest they should afterwards be disappointed. His own anxiety was enough for him to bear. Bräsig sat still in an arm-chair, and turned his head with every change of movement made by his friend. He watched Hawermann with much the same intensity as Bolster had watched young Joseph when he had put on his cap in the house. "Charles," he said at last, "I am very glad of this for your sake. You've grown quite active again and I'm sure that that activity will do you good. But you ought to engage a lawyer. I advise you to choose Mr. Rein, he's a clever fellow, and knows how to turn and twist about in spite of his height. You'll never be able to manage the affair alone Charles; but he'll help you, and if you like I'll bring the matter before the Reform club, and then your fellow-citizens will be able to help you to our rights."--"For heaven's sake, Bräsig, do nothing of the kind! How can you think of publishing such thing? I am only afraid lest Kurz should speak of it."--"Kurz? No, Charles, don't trouble your head about him, he'll not talk about it to-day at least, for I've been to see him and have lectured him until he can neither hear nor see, and to-morrow he's in for a sore throat, and so won't be able to speak."--"What do you mean, Bräsig? Kurz in for a sore throat?" cried Hawermann laughing in spite of his anxiety. "What are you talking about?"--"Don't laugh, Charles. You must know that his riding horse has inflorenza, and the vet has ordered that the old beast was to be separated from the others for fear of infecting them. Kurz is amusing himself just now by purring over the sick horse in his wadded dressing gown and then going to see how the other horses are getting on. So he's certain to infect the whole stable, for nothing carries infection so well as cotton wool--indeed wadding is looked upon as the best known absorbant of infection--you'll see that he'll catch the disease himself and will have a sore throat to-morrow. The Glanders is infectious, so why not inflorenza?"