“You must not worry any longer, dear Frau Wander,” said Wilhelm, “but you must not speak like that of the police.  You do yourself no good by it, and perhaps a great deal of harm.  We will do what we can for you.  Never mind about the rent.  You will stay on quietly here, and allow me to assist you with this trifle.”  He pressed two twenty-mark pieces into the half-reluctant hand so unused to accepting alms.  “And Herr Stubbe will give you the same sum every month till you are able to join your husband.”

He held out his hand, which she grasped in silence, incapable of finding suitable words to thank him, and he hurried to the door.  The mechanic hastily snatched up the candle from the table, ran after him and lighted him downstairs, murmuring with real emotion: 

“Thank you a thousand times, Herr Doctor, and may God bless you!”

And all the way downstairs Wilhelm was followed by the children’s jubilant song of “Bread! bread!”

One morning a few days later—­it was December the 2d—­as Wilhelm was sitting at his writing-table engaged in making notes from a thick English book of travels on the Australian savage’s ideas on nature, he heard a sound of quarreling going on in the hall.  He could distinguish Frau Muller’s irate tones, and then a man’s voice mentioning his name.  He gave no further heed to the dispute, thinking it was doubtless some importune person in whom worthy Frau Muller had detected the professional beggar, and was therefore driving away.  But it did not leave off, and grew louder and louder, Frau Muller’s voice rising at last to an exasperated scream—­there even seemed to be something like a hand-to-hand fight going on—­till Wilhelm thought it behooved him to see what was happening, and, if need be, come to the rescue of his faithful house-dragon.  He opened the door quickly and received Frau Muller in his arms.  If he had not caught her, she would have fallen backward into the room, for she had leaned—­a living bulwark—­against the door, defending the entrance with her body against two men, one of whom was trying to push her away, while the other, standing further back, was restraining his companion from grasping Frau Muller all too roughly.  In the daring man who did not shrink from laying sacrilegious hands upon the furious and snorting landlady, Wilhelm instantly recognized the mechanic whom he had seen at Frau Wander’s.  At sight of him the man raised his hat politely, and before the gasping Frau Muller, who was simply choking with excitement, could find her tongue, he said: 

“Beg pardon, I am sure, Herr Doctor, for disturbing you; but we really must speak to you.  I knew from Herr Stubbe that you are always at home at this hour, so I would not let the lady send us away.”

“The lady indeed!” Frau Muller managed at last to exclaim.  “Now he talks about ladies, and a minute ago he had the impudence—­”

“You must excuse us, madam,” said the workman with the utmost civility; “we meant no harm, and we simply must speak to the Herr Doctor.”