Fritz stopped, and playfully sprinkled a few drops of water upon the pretty baby-face. The child opened wide his eyes, and when his father repeated the play, the little one chuckled so merrily that it sounded like the cooing of doves, while throwing back his head and clinching his rosy fists upon his breast. A few days afterward Fritz went again to the nursery; this time the boy was just out of his bath and was being dried in the nurse's lap. He recognised his father and stretched out his plump arms to him. Fritz could not help tickling him a little, touching his dimples with a forefinger, and catching hold of the wee hands; a strange sensation crept over him at the touch of the pure warm baby-flesh. From that time he went into the nursery every day, if only for a moment. The child grew more and more lovely. His little pearly teeth appeared, and soft, golden hair hung over his forehead. He soon began in his short frocks to creep on all-fours over the carpet, and even to rise to his feet, holding by some article of furniture; and once, as Fritz was watching him with a languid smile, the boy suddenly left the chair against which he was leaning, and proudly and laboriously putting one foot before the other, advanced four steps towards his father, upon whose knee he was placed triumphantly quite out of breath with the mighty effort. When a little girl appeared as a claimant for the green-draped cradle, a pretty diminutive bedstead was placed in Fritz Malzin's room. What good comrades they were, Papa, and Siegi! Fritz talked to the little fellow of all sorts of things that he never mentioned to any one else, of his loved ones, of his home! And Siegi would look at him out of his large eyes, as earnestly as if he understood every word. Long before he could put words together, the boy learned to say "grandpapa," and when his father, pointing to the photograph of an old castle, that hung framed in the smoking-room, asked "Siegi, what is that?" the little fellow would reply "Neeburg." The child was his father's friend, his companion, and was loved with an idolatry such as only those fathers can know who are estranged from their wives, and have no other interest in life. Of course the child had a French bonne, but her post was almost a sinecure. Fritz scarcely lost sight of the child for a moment. Shortly after his removal to Wiplinger street he had become convinced by certain calculations, that, in view of the high price demanded by hack-drivers, it was a great economy to keep horses. The result of these calculations was attained after the fashion of the clever man who demonstrated clearly that it is far cheaper to live in a first-class Hotel than in one of the second class. When Siegi was barely three years old, Fritz used to put him on the seat beside him in his dog-cart, and drive with him in the Prater. For greater security the child was tied fast to the back of the seat with a broad, silken scarf.