Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1889-09-22

Heinrich has told me. kissing the servant
girls eh, before you'd been in America long
enough to eat dinnerl'
"Unclel' exclaimed Minna. "You en-
barrass Herr Martersteig"
This was not so. The young man looked
q trife puzzled but not in the least embar-
raised. Servant girls?" he said, with an
air of mystifcation whose honesty was too
natural to be questioned, II kissing the
servant girls? was not aware"
Heinrich" roared the wine merchant.
Minna's cousin had risen from the corner
where he had been sitting at his fathers
first reference to the servants, and was slip
ping out at the door when Herr Wachsmuth
called to him. He came back and ex-
planned with considerable awkwardness
that his story about Martersteig had been
mere playful fiction, copeocted with no
more serious intention than TO amuse
Minna and his father, and exercise his own
faculty of imagination. An idea flashed
into Martersteig'S mind as Heinrich made
his confession, and he looked searchingly
at Minna. The idea was rewarded. He
saw her bestow upon her cousin glance
calculated to make that young romancer
vince, and then he himself caught from her
q soft look of unmiStakable apology and
promise, Herr Wachsmuth seemed in
clined to regard the confession OF Heinrich
as q fiction, rather than the original story.
He chuckled and nodded and said "Yes,;
yes!-to be sure, to be sure" in way to
indicate with some plainness his under
standing that boys would be boys and that
the son of Nicholas Martersteig was chip
of the old block. But Herr Wachsmuth's
1nef hn ofh
-upon Minna because she did not even
hear them, upon Martersteig because ne saw
in the ewes of the wine merchants niece
light which he had seen there never before,
and upon Heinrich because he knew who
the oseulating rascal really was.
".
Irving Place is streaming with humanity.
A great multitude of English speaking
people is pouring into the Academy to hear
the Yankee fun of "The Old Homestead"
and great multitude of German speakers
is pouring into the Amberg Theater to
laugh at the rare comedian Junkermann
from over the sea. Martersteig and Minna.
with Heinrich to play propriety. sit in the
Amberg. in orchestra chairs. we'll in front.
Heinrich's face is the only solemn one in
the house. A droll youth is Heinrich. He
is almost i'll with jealousy of the young
doctor of philologv from Goettingen, and at
the same time Heinrich. has paid at least
half dozen visits to the pretty chamber
maid, Louisa Niemeyer, since that delirious
encounter which followed the scattering of
the clean to Pels in the hallway of the Hotel
Bruckbaue~. lie and Louisa have been in
the Hobok4a beer gardens together, and an
hos
sprung up between the pair-so much of an
attachment on Heinrich's IS part that forsev
eral DAYS now he has been wonder
ing il il will be possible
for him ever to live without
Louisa. OF course, it is highly unreason-
able in him in the circumstances to be jeal-
Gus on account of his cousin; but then it is
the nature of jealousy to be highly un-
reasonable, as we are all aware 1t is some
satisfaction to know, considering its abb
surditv, that neither Martersteig nor Minna
paws the least attention to the jealousy of
Heinrich and that the uncomtortableness
which arises from it is entirely his own.
But it must be admitted that to anybody
in love with Minna, except Martersteig,
Minna's treatment OF the young Philolog is
calculated TO be extremely annoying. He
has evidently come very far along in the
graces of the wine merchants niece in the
lew davs since Heinrich's s confession of the
diaphanousness of his story about the
chambermaid. What eyes she makes at
him!-not bold, grImaeing demonstrations,
such as flirting girls make, but eyes very
soft and full of mysterious fire and wound
ing very deep. Hardly a quarter of the
conv .Isive fun of Junkermann is apparent
to her at all, and even the shafts which do
succeed in reaching her sensibilities pro-
L. 4ha fain of
tion. Time and again when the house
roars she looks up plaintively at Junker-
mann, q though wondering what it is all
about. / think ] should hate to be merry
maker playing for an audience of Minnas;
but d not know that it is reasonable to
ask girls in love to put themselves out to
see Jokes and encourage comedy.
Something in one of the boxes makes
itself felt to the senses of Minna. A come
dian may not attract woman in love, but
another woman may. There is woman in
one OF the boxes, a slender woman sitting
well back in the shadows SO that she is not
to be seen plainly. She is dressed in black;
q cloud of black lace envelops her head and
seems to cover a good part of her face. 1t
is a curious sort o. arrangement for indoors;
it has sort of Spanish look; perhaps she
has neuralgia or some ailing akin to that
which makes such mufiing necessary or
comforting; still sh> does not have the air
OF person that is ailiug. She is calmly
tanning herself. She sits with her shoulder
presented TO Martersteig and Minna; her
face is turned away from them; she appears
to be wholly interested in the proceedings
on the stage. And yet it seemed to Minna
that a sign-a pantomimic communication
of some sort-just now passed between Mar
tersteig and this woman in the box. 1t was
a foolish impression, Minna thinks to her.
self and vet 1t was very strong. She
watches the woman for quarter of an hour;
rot movement that she makes escapes her;
but she never turns her eyes from the stage;
apparently she is as oblivious of Marter
steig as of the Sphinx: and yet-when the
act is over she wIthdraws from the box, and
Martersteig excuses himself and goes out
also.
Heinrich, 20 after Herr Martersteig,
and-and see if he speaks to anybody-to
a woman!'
The words are out uefore she thinks. Per-
haps she wishes now that she could recall
them; but suspect not. 1t was not exactly
a nice thing to send a youth like Heinrich
to play The spy on her lover. She had no
assurance that he would not bring back a
lie TO her, as he has done before; and yet the
act is explicable on the theory that Jealousy
is ready to do anything, as it is ready to sus-
pect anything and tc believe anything.
"Well?" says Minna, as Heinrich comes
grinning back.
"He spoke to a woman" says Heinrich.
81 was hid behind"
''Never mind where you were hid" cries
his cousin. "Was it woman in black?"
"Yes,'' says Heinrich.
"With lace about her head?"
"Yes; there was a queer lot of stuff all
over her head and face -
"What did he say to her?"