“How do you feel now?” asked the German, looking at him with much sympathy.
The German went out to pick up the battered chimneypot which had fallen before the door.
“I am sorry you got the fright. The birds are bad things till you know them,” he said sympathetically, as he put the hat down.
“My friend,” said Bonaparte, holding out his hand, “I forgive you; do not be disturbed. Whatever the consequences, I forgive you. I know, I believe, it was with no ill-intent that you allowed me to go out. Give me your hand. I have no ill-feeling; none!”
“You are very kind,” said the German, taking the extended hand, and feeling suddenly convinced that he was receiving magnanimous forgiveness for some great injury, “you are very kind.”
He knocked out the crown of his caved-in old hat, placed it on the table before him, leaned his elbows on the table and his face in his hands, and contemplated it.
“Ah, my old friend,” he thus apostrophized the hat, “you have served me long, you have served me faithfully, but the last day has come. Never more shall you be borne upon the head of your master. Never more shall you protect his brow from the burning rays of summer or the cutting winds of winter. Henceforth bare-headed must your master go. Good-bye, good-bye, old hat!”
At the end of this affecting appeal the German rose. He went to the box at the foot of his bed; out of it he took a black hat, which had evidently been seldom worn and carefully preserved.
“It’s not exactly what you may have been accustomed to,” he said nervously, putting it down beside the battered chimneypot, “but it might be of some use--a protection to the head, you know.”
“My friend,” said Bonaparte, “you are not following my advice; you are allowing yourself to be reproached on my account. Do not make yourself unhappy. No; I shall go bare-headed.”
“No, no, no!” cried the German energetically. “I have no use for the hat, none at all. It is shut up in the box.”
“Then I will take it, my friend. It is a comfort to one’s own mind when you have unintentionally injured any one to make reparation. I know the feeling. The hat may not be of that refined cut of which the old one was, but it will serve, yes, it will serve. Thank you,” said Bonaparte, adjusting it on his head, and then replacing it on the table. “I shall lie down now and take a little repose,” he added; “I much fear my appetite for supper will be lost.”