Page:Specimens of German Romance (Volume 3).djvu/19

 had no doubt occupied from ennui of each other’s company.

The warmth of my indignation against the driver seemed to have inspired my cold neighbour with better feelings. It was now easy to enter into a conversation with him that was not to be broken off at the second word. By degrees, my sympathy with his fate got out of him that he was born of parents in good circumstances, but who had lost their all by the devastations of war, and were in as bad condition as himself. His immediate object was to seek a patron, from whom he hoped to obtain a decent appointment. On the name and place he was silent.

In the midst of our conversation he chanced to take his hand from the mirror, and an awkward movement of our opposite neighbour happening at the same moment, the glass fell, and was shivered to pieces. Our neighbour denied, and with reason, that the blame of the accident was his, while the driver was no less loud in his execrations; nor was there any peace till I promised to be responsible for the damage. In