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The schoolmaster had never felt so lonely in his life as he did this evening in the moving throng. He fancied that everybody was looking at him compassionately as he made his solitary way through the crowd, and almost gave way to self-pity. He would have liked to talk to the first comer, for the mere pleasure of hearing his voice, for in his loneliness he felt as if he were walking by the side of a stranger. And now his conscience smote him. He remembered the waiter Gustav, who had been unable to hide his pleasure at meeting him. Now he had arrived at a point when he would have given worlds if anybody had met him and shown any pleasure at the fact. But nobody came.

Yes, somebody did, after all. As he was sitting by himself on the steamer, a setter, who had lost his master, came to him and put its head on his knee. The schoolmaster was not particularly fond of dogs, but he allowed it to stay; he felt it pressing its soft warm body against his leg, he saw the eyes of the forsaken brute looking at him in dumb appeal, as if it were asking him to find its master.

But as soon as they landed, the setter ran away. “It needed me no longer,” thought the schoolmaster, and he walked home and went to bed.

These trifling incidents of Midsummer day had robbed the schoolmaster of his assurance. They taught him that all foresight, all precautions, all the clever calculations in the world availed nothing. He felt a certain instability in his surroundings. Even the public house, his home, was not to be counted on. It might be closed any day. Moreover, a certain reserve on the part of Gustav troubled him. The waiter was as civil as before, more attentive even, but his friendship was gone; he had lost confidence. It afforded the schoolmaster food for thought, and whenever a tough piece of meat, or too small a dish of potatoes was set before him he thought:

“Haha! He’s paying me out!”

It was a bad summer for the schoolmaster: the second violin was out of town and the book-seller frequented “Mosesheight,” a garden restaurant in his own district, situated on a hill.

On an evening in autumn the bookseller and the second violin were sitting at their favourite table, drinking a glass of punch, when the schoolmaster entered, carrying under his arm a parcel which he carefully hid in an empty hamper in a cupboard used for all sorts of lumber. He was ill-tempered and unusually irritable.

“Well, old boy,” the bookseller began for the hundredth time, “and when are you going to be married?”

“Confound your ‘when are you going to be married!’ As if a man hadn’t enough trouble without it! Why don’t you get married yourself?” growled the schoolmaster.

“Oh! because I have my old Stafva,” answered the bookseller, who always had a number of stereotyped answers in readiness.

“I was married very happily,” said the Pole, “but my wife is dead, now, ugh!”

“Is she?” mimicked the schoolmaster; “and the gentleman is a widower? How am I to reconcile these facts?”

The Pole nodded, for he did not in the least understand what the schoolmaster was driving at.

The latter felt bored by his friends; their topic of conversation was always the same; he knew their replies by heart.

Presently he went into the corridor for a few moments to fetch his cigar-case which he had left in the pocket of his overcoat. The bookseller instantly raided the cupboard and returned with the mysterious parcel. As it was not sealed, he opened it quickly; it contained a beautiful American sleeping-suit; he hung it carefully over the back of the schoolmaster’s chair.

“Ugh!” said the Pole, grinning, as if he were looking at something unsightly.

The proprietor of the restaurant who loved a practical joke, bent over the counter, laughing loudly; the waiter stood rooted to the spot, and one of the cooks peeped through the door which communicated with the kitchen.