CHAPTER II.
Fischelowitz paid each worker for the day's work, in his quick, cheerful
way, and each, being paid, passed out through the front shop into the
street. Five minutes later the Count was strolling along the
Maximilians-strasse in the direction of the royal palace. As he walked he
drew himself up to the full height of his military figure and looked into
the faces of the passers in the way with grave dignity. At that hour there
were many people abroad, slim lieutenants in the green uniforms of the
Uhlans and in the blue coats and crimson facings of the heavy cavalry,
superior officers with silver or gold plated epaulettes, slim maidens and
plump matrons, beardless students in bright, coloured caps, and solemn,
elderly civilians with great beards and greater spectacles, great Munich
burghers and little Munich nobles, gaily dressed children of all ages,
dogs of every breed from the Saint Bernard to the crooked-jointed Dachs,
perambulators not a few and legions of nursery-maids. Most of the people
who passed cast a glance at the thoroughbred-looking man in the threadbare
frock-coat who looked at them all with such an air of quiet superiority,
carrying his head so high and putting down his feet with such a firm
tread. There were doubtless those among the crowd who saw in the tired
face the indications of a life-story not without interest, for the crowd
was not, nor ever is, in Munich, lacking in intelligent and observant
persons. But in all the multitude there was not one man or woman who knew
the name of the individual to whom the face belonged, and there were few
who would have risked the respectability of their social position by
making the acquaintance of a man so evidently poor, even if the occasion
had presented itself.
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