Krafft turned quickly from the window. "And if I make it a test of the
friendship you have professed for me, that you stay here with me
to-night?--You can sleep on the sofa."

"Why on earth get personal?" said Maurice; he could not find his hat,
which had fallen in a dark corner. "Heinz, dear boy, be reasonable.
Come, give me the house-key--like a good fellow."

"It's the first--the only thing, I have asked of you."

"Nonsense. You have asked dozens."

Krafft took a few steps towards him, and threw the key on the floor at
his feet. Wotan, who was at the door, mewing to be let out, sprang
back, in affright.

"Go, go, go!" Krafft cried. "I never want to see you again."

Earlier than usual the next morning, Maurice returned to set things
right, and to laugh with Heinz at their extravagance the night before.
But Krafft was not to be seen. From Frau Schulz, who flounced past him
in the passage, first with hot water, then with black coffee, Maurice
learned that Krafft had been brought home early that morning, in a
disgraceful state of intoxication. Frau Schulz still boiled at the
remembrance.

"SO 'N SCHWEIN, SO 'N SCHWEIN!" she cried. "But this time he goes. I
have said it before and, fool that I am, have always let them persuade
me. But this is the end. Not a day after the fifteenth will I have him