"Ah! to be sure!" replied the latter, stepping in front of the glass and winking at Felix as he passed, "you haven't slept off your headache from last night. Hm! Another time, then. It seems to me, do you know, I look devilish respectable, and the glovemaker's little daughter will make no end of a good match in catching a person of my tone and style. Look, there she sits over there at her post, the little witch, and at the other window, completely absorbed in her work, is her pious sister. _Sua cuique_-- Well, I won't quote any further, Elfinger, my boy! But now, I must wend my way to the high tribunal. Will you accompany me, friend baron? You must support me with spiritual comfort, in case I should show signs of weakness by the way. To be sure, I have just been working up my courage by three beautiful strophes; but a lyric of that sort, strongly diluted with water, does not last long, and a more spiritual elixir for the heart cannot be prepared off-hand. May Heaven take me in its safe keeping! Amen! Well, Elfinger, you shall hear before long how it turns out!" Upon this he pressed his hat down firmly on his forehead, nodded to his friend with a comical expression of misery and despair, and dragged Felix with him from the room. On the stairs he suddenly stood still and said, in a suppressed and mysterious voice: "Our friend up-stairs has the same trouble worse than I have. He is smitten with the other one; but she is a little saint, as much of a nun, thanks to her education with the English sisters, as my little witch is a child of the world for the same reason. Now just conceive of it, the more my little imp carries on--it will be hard work making a sensible housewife of her--the more zealously does our good Fanny confess and do penance and pray, and it really looks as if she were seriously intent upon gaining a saint's halo. The fact is the girls never associate with sensible people, and for that reason one of us must sacrifice himself so that the ice will at last be broken, although I confess it is pure madness on my part to think of marrying. You have no idea, my dear friend, what extraordinary cobwebs gather in an old Munich burgherhouse like this. Well, a few fresh fellows like us--I imagine it would not take us long to bring new life into it, if we were only once inside!" He sighed, and appeared not to be in the most courageous mood, notwithstanding his brave words. Felix accompanied him across the street and saw him enter the narrow, arched door next to the glove store, which was closed on account of its being Sunday--going in with an assumed air of boldness, as if he were going to a dance. Then he himself wandered aimlessly down the street. In what direction should he turn his steps? In the whole city there was no one who would be looking for him to-day, and the one to whom he felt most drawn was, strangely enough, on Sunday afternoons farther out of his reach than at any other time.