"Why, Mohr! Heinrich Mohr! What wind has blown you to us again?" cried Edwin, advancing to meet him and cordially shaking hands.
"The same thoughtless whirlwind, I suppose, that tosses all the sweepings of humanity into confusion," replied the other. "It is only those individuals, who possess a certain specific weight, that do not change their places without special cause. You, for instance, I find in the same old house where I left you three years ago. And, if I must be honest, the only sensible reason I can give for venturing out of my dull little birthplace back to this huge, clever, mad Berlin, was the desire to see you again. After all, you have the most friendly faces, and that you really seem to feel a sort of pleasure in being troubled with me again, proves that you are still the same as of old."
"And you, too, seem to have altered little; less, perhaps, than would have been advisable," said Edwin, laughing.
Mohr's only answer was a shrug of the shoulders. He threw down his satchel and went to the turning-lathe, beside which Balder was leaning.
"Still as conscientious as ever; trying to kill himself," he muttered, taking up some of the little articles which were waiting for the last touches. "But I can't blame you, Balder. You at least accomplish something every day, and only hurt your chest by bending and stooping. Other people would be fairly beside themselves with impatience, if they had to sit doubled up all day long turning their stock in trade. Besides, it seems to me you have made considerable progress. You are an enviable fellow, Balder."
The youth looked at him with a smile.
"Would that you could only convince Edwin of it!" he said; "he is always trying to persuade me to give up my trade. He won't believe that to sit perfectly idle, and see everybody else work would kill me much sooner."
"Idle! As if you ever could be idle!" cried Edwin indignantly. "As if it were not the most insane obstinacy to refuse to accept from his own and only brother, that which even he has means sufficient to procure--a pitiful mouthful of bread! But we will let it pass, though it is the only real annoyance of my life, and this hard heart might so easily spare it me,--Basta! I will not be vexed to-day. So begin your confession, my friend! To-day, at least, you are secure from any moralizing on my part."
Mohr having seated himself in a chair beside the open window, had begun to twist a cigarette, the materials for which he took from a tin box.
"There is absolutely nothing new to tell," he replied with great apparent indifference. "The old apothegm that no one can add one inch to his stature, has been once more ratified, that's all. I left Berlin, as you will remember, because I thought that the noise and bustle alone prevented me from becoming a great man. 'Talent developes in a quiet life.' Well, I've lived quietly enough with my old mother, but nothing has developed. So, thinks I to myself, as no talent developes let us try character--'character is formed in the current of the world'--and so back I have come again, and have already selected a character to which I intend to adapt myself. A match, Edwin!"