tower stairs.  He paid no attention to it, for just then he found a sheet of lead lying among his things.  He had brought with him the exact number of sheets that he needed.  So this was evidently one that he had forgotten; in his distracted state of mind he had overlooked one of the riveting points.  From the door he looked up and down the surface of the roof.  If the mistake had happened on this side of the tower he could perhaps rectify it without his seat.  Perhaps the ladder would suffice to reach the required point.  And so it proved to be.  About six feet above him, near the roof-hook he had taken out a slate and had neglected to replace it with a sheet of lead and to fasten the garland to it.  In the meantime the mysterious steps were coming ever nearer; the man in such haste had now reached the end of the stone stairs and was climbing the ladder to the roof.  The clock below rumbled.  It was almost two.  Apollonius had not yet had dinner, but when there was a flaw of any kind in his work he could not rest until he had rectified it.  He had gone back to fetch the ladder.  It lay on the beam near the swinging-seat.  As he stooped to get it he felt himself seized and pushed with wild violence toward the door.  Instinctively he caught hold of the lower edge of a beam with his right hand while with his left he sought in vain for support.  This movement brought him face to face with his assailant.  Horrified he saw the distorted, wild features of his brother.

“You shall have her all to yourself, or down you go with me.”

“Away!” cried Apollonius.  In his angry pain all his reproaches against his brother mounted into his face.  Exerting all his strength he pushed him back with his free hand.

“So you show your true face, at last?” mocked Fritz Nettenmair in still greater rage.  “You have dislodged me from every place that I possessed; now it is my turn.  You shall have me on your conscience, you fluff-picker.  Throw me over, or down you go with me!”

Apollonius saw no deliverance.  The hand with which he held desperately to the sharp edge of the beam was well-nigh exhausted.  With all his strength he would have to seize his brother by the arms, turn him round and push him over if he did not want to be dragged down with him.  And yet he cried:  “I will not!”

“Very well,” groaned Fritz.  “You want to put the blame of this too on me; you want to make me do this too.  Your sanctimoniousness shall now have an end.”  Apollonius would have sought a new hold, but he knew that his brother would take advantage of the instant when he let go his present one.  Fritz was already just on the point of making a violent dash at him.  Apollonius’ hand was slipping from the edge of the beam.  He would be lost if he did not find some new hold.  He could perhaps make a jump and catch the beam with both hands; but then his brother, by the force of his own onset, would certainly fall through the door.  A vision of his honest, proud, old father, of the young