The wretched couple behind my back seemed to be in the best of spirits, and as the cab was now open I could understand every word they spoke. “Did you receive my post-card?” asked the villain. “Of course I did,” replied the faithless one. “I did not know he was going out of town. Are you quite sure he’s gone? I’m in mortal terror.” “Never fear, my love,” he replied; “I was in his rooms this morning. He must have left very early.” I was furious. So this was the meaning of his interested questions the night before! Full of wrath I brought down my whip upon my horse. “Don’t beat that horse so!” cried my friend Otto from the cab; “we are in no particular hurry.” I burst into a roar of hysterical laughter. The villain! he was pitiful toward the horse, more than toward his friend. Again the nag was called upon to bear the brunt of my indignation at my friend Otto. “The fellow must be mad,” said my friend Otto. “Don’t talk so loud,” begged Emma. “Nonsense,” he replied. “I told you that he is as deaf as a poker; moreover, look at him. I believe he has false hair!” My wig had evidently become dislocated. I heard them giggle. For a moment I considered the propriety of turning my whip to good purpose behind me--but that of course would have betrayed me. The noise of passing carriages on Leipzigerstrasse made it impossible for me to hear what was passing between the couple; it was not until we had reached more quiet streets that I again caught some bits of their conversation. I perceived that I was again the subject thereof. “How do you get along with him?” asked my friend Otto. “Oh well,” responded Emma, “he’s a good enough fellow.” Whack,--the nag caught it again then, for the tone in which she said it roused my ire. “That’s so,” continued my friend Otto; “but he is a bore, an intolerable bore.” The knave! With bated breath I listened to hear what she would reply to this calumny. Emma giggled; that was as much as to say, “You are right.” I was in a fever of wrath. “Does he ever read any of his things to you?” asked my friend Otto. “Does he write?” she queried in surprise. The uneducated goose! The superficial hussy! Did she not know that I had already published two volumes of lyrical poetry? And she asks if I write! “I should think so,” replied my friend Otto, with an infamous roar of laughter. “Every little while he hatches a new poem a yard or two long, and reads it to his friends.” Emma shook with laughter. “So far he has spared me,” she observed. “Never fear, my love, never fear,” I muttered into my false beard; “you shan’t have any more opportunity to be bored by me!” In my mind I was composing the crushing farewell-note I intended to write to the faithless one on the morrow. After a time which seemed endless to me we reached the garden restaurant called “Charlottenhof.”