Frau Ottilie Levy was a worthy counterpart of her partner in life. If harmony in marriage is secured by similarity in tastes and disposition, theirs should have been an ideal union, for their characters and views were almost exactly alike. Like her husband, Frau Levy was intensely ambitious. Her sole aim in life was to secure the greatest possible measure of wealth and social prestige. She shared her husband’s grievance to the fullest extent; but, womanlike, she was inclined to put the blame on him for his failure to advance, and continually nagged and pestered him with her complaints, and the expression of her discontent at not being able to shine as much as Frau Geheimräthin So-and-So or Frau Commerzienräthin Somebody Else. Seeing the discomposure under which her husband was evidently laboring, her woman’s instinct told her that now was not the time to nag and scold, but to sympathize and console. She therefore relinquished, or rather postponed to a more favorable opportunity, the caustic lecture combined with a demand for a larger allowance which she had been preparing all day for the special benefit of her life partner, and began inquiring, with great solicitude, concerning the cause of his disturbed condition. “What is the matter, Franz dear?” she asked, in the same tone of winning gentleness which she had lately so greatly admired in the celebrated stage heroine, Adele de Pompadour, as played by Madame Graetzinger, the renowned _Erste Dame_ of the Stadt Theater. “Why are you so upset? I trust that nothing serious has happened.” “Yes and no,” answered Franz dejectedly; “that old Von Meinken caught me to-day, when I was thinking about the shameful slowness of my promotion, or rather my lack of any promotion, and was neglecting my work. I was so absorbed in thought that I never noticed him, although, as he told me, he stood by my desk over a minute. Of course I gave him as good an excuse as I could get up in a hurry to account for my absent-mindedness; but how can I tell whether the old fox believed what I said or not? Confound him, he’s always sure to be around when he isn’t wanted. You can rely on it that I worked extra hard all the rest of the afternoon.” “You don’t think that can hurt you any, do you?” asked Otillie, dropping her theatrical manner, and with just a shade of anxiety in her voice. “What harm is it if an old, trustworthy employee like you is idle for a minute or two in the day?” “It oughtn’t to be any harm,” answered Franz. “But then you know how stiff and exacting these Prussian officials are. They think men are nothing but machines, and they make no allowances for anything. A number of men have been discharged of late, and then, you know, there is so much anti-Semitism nowadays. I, as a Jew, have to be particularly careful.”