Supposing he should recognise me,--I dared not think the thought, I felt myself blush and then turn pale under my beard. I turned my head to the other side, toward the Schloss, but as I involuntarily looked at him askance, it seemed to me that he was standing still. In fact so he was,--he stood there beckoning to me! I was seized with horror! “Beckon away as hard as you please,” I said to myself, driving on. Now I heard his voice: “Hello there, cabman!” I pretended not to hear, and still drove on. Then he came rushing with tremendous strides across the square. “Confound you!” he cried. “Don’t you hear me?” There was no further possibility of escape; I must needs pull up. Like a criminal over whom sentence of death has just been passed, I hung my head; with the corner of my left eye I saw that my friend Otto had on his best suit, and was carrying his summer overcoat over his arm. “Kanonierstrasse No.----,” he said, jumping airily into the cab. I started involuntarily. What did he want to go to the Kanonierstrasse for? I knew that he did not live there--none of our boon companions lived there, I knew that also,--but some one dwelt within that house whom I knew very well, and that was Emma, my friend of the ballet, my Emma! That Emma was true, true as gold, I knew, thank Heaven! At the same time a vague unrest took possession of me, and in flying haste did I urge my steed in the direction of the Kanonierstrasse. I riveted my eyes upon the house long before we reached it. Did my suspicion deceive me? Up there between the hyacinths did I not see some one look out? The wheels of my cab came rattling up before the door, no further mistake was possible; out of Emma’s window inclined a head with raven curls--it was hers! At the same moment my friend Otto impetuously pulled open the door of the cab, jumped out, and threw kisses to her. Then he put his hand to his mouth and called out: “I’ll wait for you down here with the cab. Come down, and we will have a drive in the Thiergarten.” I fell back into the corner of my seat. This was too much! The wretch! My own faithless beloved I was to take on a drive in the Thiergarten! Through my horn spectacles I cast one annihilating glance above; it fell upon no one, for Emma had left the window. For a moment I considered--should I tear the wig, spectacles, and beard from off my face, and so drop my disguise before the traitors? But the ridicule, the eternal ridicule! It seemed to me the whole Kanonierstrasse would stand on its head in appreciation of the joke. “Turn the top down,” commanded my friend Otto. “It is stifling in here.” Worse and worse! But what could I do? I scrambled down and began to do as I was bid. Meanwhile the street-door opened and Emma floated across the threshold. A sombre oath escaped me. “Now drive to the Thiergarten,” said my friend Otto. “Very well,” I replied, with terrible irony in my savage voice.