Oswald did not reply, but leaped with a single bound out of the carriage, and hurried to meet the genius, who no sooner recognized the young man than he dropped the plate with all the silver and copper coins, and fell into his arms.
"Yes, man with the blue eye," replied the child, eagerly and affectionately, still hanging on his neck; but then suddenly tearing herself away and anxiously looking toward the carriage:
"No, Czika," said Oswald, knowing very well that the other of whom she spoke was Oldenburg. "But are you quite alone?"
"No, mother is with me; mother does not leave the Czika. Come and help me to collect the money again." And the child stooped down to pick up the coins that were half hid in the dust.
"Oldenburg's child among rope-dancers," said Oswald to himself, mechanically obeying the child's injunction and unconscious of what he was doing, kneeling down and picking up here and there the scattered pennies.
The highly-cultivated public thought this meeting of an apparently great personage with a rope-dancer's child, and their warm embrace, more remarkable than anything they had seen that evening. Young and old they crowded around them, forming a close circle, and apparently determined not to leave the place till they had solved the mystery of this extraordinary meeting.
Franz, who had witnessed the scene from the carriage, had scarcely been less amazed than the crowd. Very soon, however, he recollected the mysterious reports about a gypsy girl whom Baron Oldenburg was said to have harbored at his lonely house for several weeks, until she had escaped from him one fine day, and, with that rapidity of combination which is often found in strong heads, he at once concluded that Oswald, who no doubt was in the baron's secret, had recognized the gypsy girl in the beautiful genius. His next thought was to shorten the scene, for Oswald's sake mainly, and in order to diminish as far as possible the sensation which it had already produced. He jumped, therefore, from the carriage, hastened to Oswald, and said,
"Let us go on! At least till the crowd has dispersed."
At the same moment the director of the company, who had also observed the scene from the stage, on which he had harangued the public, pushed his way through the assembly. His curiosity to know what was going on, and his indignation at seeing the important business of collection interrupted at the critical moment, had made him forget that he still wore the costume of the red-nosed landlord, and that he, therefore, ought not to have mingled with the people unless he wished to sacrifice the dignity of his art. Franz was justly afraid that the tragi-comic scene might become decidedly disagreeable if that personage should join them, and therefore anticipated his questions by meeting him before he came near, and whispering to him in a tone just loud enough to be heard by the bystanders,