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touch of gray in it, and his moustache drooped in Polish fashion. He was wearing an open gray top-coat, underneath which were visible a greasy dress-suit, a crumpled shirt with three false diamond studs, a crinkled collar and a dangling, white silk tie. His eyelids were inflamed, as if from many sleepless nights, but his blue eyes gleamed brightly.
    "You here in Vienna, Nachtigall?" exclaimed Fridolin.
    "Didn't you know?" said Nachtigall with a soft, Polish accent and a slightly Jewish twang. "How could you miss it, and me so famous?" He laughed loudly and good-naturedly, and sat down opposite Fridolin.
    "What," asked Fridolin, "have you been appointed Professor of Surgery without my hearing of it?"
    Nachtigall laughed still louder. "Didn't you hear me just now, just a minute ago?"
    "What do you mean—hear you?—Why, of course." Suddenly it occurred to him that someone had been playing the piano when he entered; in fact, he had heard music coming from some basement as he approached the cafe. "So that was you playing?" he exclaimed.
    "It was," Nachtigall said, laughing.
    Fridolin nodded. Why, of course—the strangely vigorous touch, the peculiar, but euphonious bass chords had at once seemed familiar to him. "Are you devoting yourself entirely to it?" he asked. He remembered that Nachtigall had definitely given up the study of medicine after his second preliminary examination in zoology, which he had passed although he was seven years late in taking it. Since then he had been hanging around the hospital, the dissecting room, the laboratories and classrooms for some time afterwards. With his blond artist's head, his crinkled collar, his dangling tie that had once been white, he had been a striking and, in the humorous sense, popular figure. He had been much liked, not only by his fellow-students, but also by many professors. The son of a Jewish gin-shop owner in a small Polish town, he had left home early and had come to Vienna to study medicine. The trifling sums he received from his parents had from the very-beginning been scarcely worth mention and were soon discontinued. However, this didn't prevent his appearing in the Riedhof Hotel at the table reserved for medical students where Fridolin was a regular guest. At intervals, one after another of his more well-to-do fellow-students would pay his bill. He sometimes, also, was given clothes, which he accepted gladly and without false pride. He had already learned to play in his home town from a pianist stranded there, and while he was a medical student in Vienna he had studied at the Conservatory where he was considered a talented musician of great promise. But here, too, he was neither serious nor diligent enough to develop his art systematically. He soon became entirely content with the impression he made on his acquaintances, or rather with the pleasure he gave them by his playing. For a while he had a position as pianist in a suburban dancing-school.
    Fellow-students and table-companions tried to introduce him into fashionable houses in the same capacity, but on such occasions he would play only what suited him and as long as he chose. His conversations with the young girls present were not always harmless, and he drank more than he could carry. Once, playing for a dance in the house of a wealthy banker, he embarrassed several couples with flattering but improper remarks, and ended up by playing a wild cancan and singing a risque song with his powerful, bass voice. The host gave him a severe calling down, but Nachtigall, blissfully hilarious, got up and embraced him. The latter was furious and, although himself a Jew, hurled a common insult at him. Nachtigall at once retaliated with a powerful box on his ears, and this definitely concluded his career in the fashionable houses of the city. He behaved better, on the whole, in more intimate circles, although sometimes when the hour was late, he had to be put out of the place by force. But the following morning all was