Before I had gone many steps I saw that my fears for the horses were groundless, the fire being ever so much farther away than had appeared from the window. However, having taken the trouble to rise and dress, I resolved to go on a little, and see whatever there was to be seen. It was a lovely moonlight night, almost as bright as day, only that the town had a much more lively aspect than I had ever seen it wear by daylight, for every one was afoot, and, like myself, hurrying towards the red glare visible over the high-pointed gables. It proved impossible to get close to the fire raging in a narrow street at the beginning of the Untere Stadt, but any one standing at the top of the steep stone staircase by which this portion of the town is reached could command a good view of the scene, all the more striking from being seen from above. After I had stood there for nearly half an hour watching the tossing flames below me, and choked by occasional puffs of smoke, I began to feel both chilly and sleepy, and thought I might as well go back to bed, since it was nearly one o’clock, and the excitements of this night appeared to be exhausted. I left a large crowd still assembled round the scene of action, while the streets I passed on my homeward way were empty and deserted. Deserted, likewise, was our own street, the Fleischer Gasse, as it lay before me in the moonlight; but as I approached I became aware of the solitary dark-clad figure of a slender young man walking on the pavement just in front of our house. He seemed to me well dressed, and in appearance thoroughly respectable—an opinion which Brick, however, failed to share, for he advanced to meet the stranger with a low growl of suppressed but intense disapproval, which compliment the respectable young man returned by savagely hitting the dog with the tightly rolled-up umbrella he carried in his hand. I should probably not have cast a second look at this stranger had not something in the needless brutality of his action attracted my attention, and caused me to scan his features. I thus noticed that he appeared to be little over twenty years of age, had a small sallow face, a sprouting mustache, and dark eyes set rather near together. I rang the house-bell, and my maid came down to let me in, when, to my surprise, the stranger rudely attempted to force himself in behind me; but we slammed the door in his face, and then my servant told me that this same young man had been hanging about here for over half an hour, and had already once endeavored to effect an entrance behind some other person. * * * * *