"If by 'phoenix' you mean insurance against fire, one can never be certain of that in young people, but I'll stake my life on his goodness; everything else you must find out for yourself in case you are really serious about giving your daughter--but that is none of my business. My Regine can read and write, and that is enough to enable her to get along with everything that does not concern propagation. However, everybody has a right to his own opinion. If that is yours, Herr König, you will probably find the Herr Doctor at home now. It is vacation, and most of his private pupils are traveling." "I suppose," said the artist timidly, as he put on his hat and followed the shoemaker into the entry, "the price for the lessons will not be exorbitant." "You need have no anxiety on that score," replied the shoemaker, shuttings the door of the shop. "If he were paid as he deserves, he wouldn't need to climb my old back stairs, but could buy the handsomest house on Unter der Linden. Turn to the left here, and then cross the courtyard, Herr König, if you please." CHAPTER VII. Meantime the brothers had again been left alone. As soon as the music below ceased, Mohr took his hat. "To envy this happiness is one of my favorite occupations," he growled, twisting his under lip awry. "I pity you for being able to listen to such a thing quietly, without becoming filled with fiendish joy or rage, I tried to express this mood in a somewhat rattling, but I think not wholly meritless composition, which I call my _sinfonia ironica_. When I have a lodging and a tin pan, I'll play it to you, and then read you my new comedy: 'I am I, and rely on myself.'" "A great many pleasures at once, Heinz," said Edwin. "You need not fear the length of this _concert spirituel_. Only two bars of the symphony and an act and a half of the comedy are finished. A man who is but half a man, never brings any work to completion." "Fortunately, as you know, the half is more than the whole," "You shall give me a lecture on that subject very shortly, Philosopher. Adieu." He went out to search for lodgings in the neighborhood. His mother, a widow in easy circumstances, seemed to have provided him with sufficient means to live for some time without work. At the pianist's door he paused, and read on the little porcelain plate: "Christiane Falk, music teacher." Within everything was still. He would gladly have found some pretext to ring and to make her acquaintance; however, none occurred to him, so he deferred it until a more favorable opportunity. Balder had returned to his work again. He seemed in great haste to complete a dainty little box of olive-wood, which contained all sorts of implements for sewing. In the meantime Edwin was dressing.