My wig had evidently become dislocated. I heard them giggle. For a moment I considered the propriety of turning my whip to good purpose behind me—but that of course would have betrayed me.
The noise of passing carriages on Leipzigerstrasse made it impossible for me to hear what was passing between the couple; it was not until we had reached more quiet streets that I again caught some bits of their conversation. I perceived that I was again the subject thereof.
“How do you get along with him?” asked my friend Otto.
“Oh well,” responded Emma, “he’s a good enough fellow.”
Whack,—the nag caught it again then, for the tone in which she said it roused my ire.
“That’s so,” continued my friend Otto; “but he is a bore, an intolerable bore.”
The knave! With bated breath I listened to hear what she would reply to this calumny.
Emma giggled; that was as much as to say, “You are right.”
I was in a fever of wrath.
“Does he ever read any of his things to you?” asked my friend Otto.