black suit, if I would only go quietly home with him. And he put on my finger on the spot a ring with a red stone that I had always fancied, so I went along quietly with him to his apartment that I had the key of. The Baron slept in my attic room, and I had to lie on the sofa in his best room to look as if I was trying to play the gentleman. The next day the Baron went out twice in a blue blouse with a cap on his head, and the second morning we both went on foot out of the city, in clothes that I wouldn't have liked to touch with a pair of tongs!" Mahlmann stopped and rubbed his left knee. "What rheumatism I do have! And in the month of July! Well, well, it's always the way when you begin to get old; I suppose I must be about ninety. My grandfather's aunt, though, was more than a hundred and only died then from eating too much at a pig-killing!" He sighed and nodded. "We've all got to be put under ground some day, but it's queer just the same what a difference there is about dying. I'm old now, and that time when I went through Paris in the early morning with a rag-bag on my back, and my Baron with just such another one, was the first time in my life that I ever thought of death, and it isn't a thought for a boy. It was because the carts were passing us with the aristocrats who were going to have their heads chopped off. I'd seen those old carts often enough and naturally thought nothing of it, because it was a good thing that the fine Monsieurs and Madames were got rid off; but this time it startled me, for the little Mamsell was in one of the ramshackle old wagons too. And the strangest of all was she still had on my confirmation suit that made her look like a pretty boy. She had folded her hands and looked as if she was going to communion. There weren't many people in the street,' it was so early, and I was just about to open my mouth and cry out that Mamsell had on my black suit and I wanted her to give it back, when my Baron clapped his hand over my mouth and I nearly choked. 'Donner-wetter' how he gripped me! But only a minute, for suddenly his strength gave out and he stood stock-still and began to tremble. He had looked at Manon and she at him. Such a smile came over her face and she bowed her head, and then the cart drove quickly on. My master stood in one spot for as much as a quarter of an hour, and big tears rolled down his cheeks. 'A horrible mistake!' he murmured, 'she told me she was in no danger, that her father would get her free the next day--he could not have found her! Heavenly Father, couldst thou not have pity on her youth and beauty?' He said much more and I got impatient when he wouldn't go on, and said, 'Herr Baron, the little Mamsell is gone for good and all, I suppose, and my black suit too, so there's no chance of my ever seeing that again, but if we stay here much longer they'll take us to the "Gartine" too, and the little Mamsell wouldn't wish that, or why should she have made all this fuss about my suit.