One morning about two years after his return to Mühlenberg, a stranger walked into the shop. He was a handsome, slender young man of about August’s age, dressed in a beautifully tailored dark-blue suit which he wore with a careless ease and which, August noticed with amusement, precisely matched the color of his eyes. He held under one arm an elegant walking stick with a top shaped like the head of a grimacing troll—it was really a clever piece of work, and August for some reason imagined it coming to life and biting a finger—and he carried in one hand a parcel wrapped in brown paper. He asked in a Berlin accent if he might speak to August Eschenburg. August was alone in the shop that morning and at once presented himself to the elegant stranger, who proceeded to study him with a cool, amused frankness that might have been insolent had it not seemed so good-natured. A dim memory stirred, but August could not quite place him. “I’ve a package for you,” the stranger then said, and handed him the parcel, adding the single word: “Hausenstein.” August, amused and not at all irritated by the deliberate air of mystery, opened the package. It contained his miniature boy writer. He looked up in surprise, and recognized the blond-haired youth whom he had fleetingly seen in the window with Preisendanz.

“I thought you might want it as a keepsake. A pleasant little souvenir of the dear old days. Ah, the days of our fled youth—pity they didn’t flee a little quicker. It’s quite clever, Eschenburg—brilliant, as a matter of fact. They’re forgotten now—the fools are more fickle than even I supposed. You’re still at it, I trust?” He glanced around keenly. “Incidentally, I’m the fellow whose trash drove you out. Do you have a few minutes? Odd question to put in a clockshop.”