With redoubled eagerness and force the children were playing their last new Polka. Walter's eyes were steadily fixed upon a window, from which he thought he could discern some one watching them, seated behind a curtain, and he hoped to receive something from the half-hidden form. But he felt his arm suddenly seized: he was startled, and looked round to ascertain what it could be; and in the benevolent face that was gazing upon him he instantly recognized, to his unutterable delight, the little man whose name he had forgotten, and whom he had so longed to see.
"God be thanked that I have found you! that you are really here! Now, indeed, everything must go right!" he cried, almost beside himself with joy, as he extended his hand to the stranger.
"If you really had such a strong desire to see me, why did you not come to my house? for I gave you my name, and you might easily have found me," said the clock-maker.
"You did, indeed, but I forgot it! I could not recollect it: that was my bad luck!" said the poor child eagerly.
"Did you really forget my name? Did you try hard to recollect it?" asked the little man, doubtingly. "Come, children, they do not seem inclined to give you anything here. Come, I will walk with you a little way."
Minnie took her harp, looking very much astonished, and gazing distrustfully at the watch-maker, who did not seem to concern himself at all about the maiden. He asked Walter to tell honestly and truly all that had happened to him since their parting, and what he had done to support himself.
The boy related concisely all that had occurred. He told him that, having no passport, he was very much afraid of the police, and of being put into prison; but that the stout man had taken him as his son, and that he played about in all the streets with Minnie, who accompanied his violin with the harp, in order to get as much money as they could.
"Then you have found a father, and require no other?" said the clock-maker. "Now everything goes on happily with you: this wild kind of life suits you, and you desire nothing better?"