In the joy of my heart I offered him a cigar; he did not decline, at the same time remarking that he preferred snuff to tobacco, which, as he said, was better adapted to his calling.
Again I opened my note-book: “The second-class cab-driver does not disdain tobacco, preferring however to indulge in snuff.”
“You see,” I said, after having secured this important fact in writing for all future times, “how it is always well to open one’s eyes to learn new things; up to this day I have never seen a cab-driver use snuff.”
“Oh, as for them fellows——,” he replied, shrugging his shoulders, “why should they snuff? I was talking about our business.”
“How so?” I stammered, with a puzzled look. He leaned down to me. “I’m only taking this cab out to-day, because my father don’t feel just right; the old hurdle belongs to him.”
The trees in the Thiergarten began to dance before my very eyes.
“What is your calling?” I shrieked in mortal agony. With a smile he looked down upon me: “I’m a chimney-sweep,” he said.
“Stop!” I called out to him in a voice of thunder; “I want to get out here!”
That afternoon I returned to my rooms with a bowed head; I had the feeling that everybody must know I had been out riding with a chimney-sweep.
As I entered the house I noticed that there was a gateway beside the street-door bearing the inscription: “Cabs and carriages by the hour.” I had only lived in that particular house for a few days, and so had paid no attention to this before. Now, as my eyes were resting thoughtfully upon this sign, I made the observation that it is in hours of deep contrition that the soul of man ripens to grand purposes; for a thought arose within me, the boldness of which almost made me grow dizzy.