Before this praiseworthy deed we had, however, thrown snow at a young
lady in wanton mischief. I forgive our heedlessness as we were forgiven,
but it is really a painful thought to me that we should have snowballed
a poor insane man, well known in the Thiergarten and Lennestrasse, and
who seriously imagined that he was made of glass.

I began to relate this, thinking of our uproarious laughter when the poor
fellow cried out: "Let me alone! I shall break! Don't you hear me
clink?" Then I stopped, for my heart aches when I reflect what terrible
distress our thoughtlessness caused the unfortunate creature. We were
not bad-hearted children, and yet it occurred to none of us to put
ourselves in the place of the whimpering man and think what he suffered.
But we could not do it. A child is naturally egotistical, and unable in
such a case to distinguish between what is amusing and what is sad. Had
the cry, "It hurts me!" once fallen from the trembling lips of the
"glass man," I think we should have thrown nothing more at him.

But our young hearts did not, under all circumstances, allow what amused
us to cast kinder feelings into the shade. The "man of glass" had a
feminine 'pendant' in the "crazy Frau Councillor with the velvet
envelope." This was a name she herself had given to a threadbare little
velvet cloak, when some naughty boys--were we among them?--were
snowballing her, and she besought us not to injure her velvet envelope.
But when there was ice on the ground and one of the boys was trying
to get her on to a slide, Ludo and I interfered and prevented it.
Naturally, there was a good fight in consequence, but I am glad
of it to this day.