The postmaster highly delighted displayed the accommodations that his house afforded, and Delmar found the rooms far more numerous and spacious than he could have anticipated. He engaged the largest and finest with a glorious view from the windows, of the castle and the snowy peaks in the background, for a sitting-room, and also a huge room adjoining with three beds in it, and then, after a short conversation with Hansel, returned with him to the inn parlour and informed his friends that they might inspect and approve his choice.
"So everything is arranged," said Paul, rubbing his hands, "except the price we have to pay. What do you want for the two rooms, Herr Postmaster? Don't ask too much; be reasonable, and we shall stay here all the longer."
The postmaster regarded him with a sly smile. "Would two guilders a day be too much for the two rooms?"
"Two guilders a day! Man, do you think we are made of money? One guilder is enough, and I will not give more."
"But, Delmar, pray----" Herwarth interposed, but Paul would not let him speak.
"I am quartermaster, and allow no interference in my affairs. Are you satisfied, postmaster, with one guilder?"
"'Tis not much, but it will do," Hansel replied, apparently not greatly disappointed at this reduction in the rent of his rooms. In fact he laughed when Paul explained that he would have no money transactions with an underling, but would settle with the postmaster himself daily. He assured the gentlemen that they should be well provided for and not overcharged, and then he went off grinning to the kitchen, and told Loisel that he had rented his two best rooms, and that the gentleman with the black beard had offered him four guilders a day for them, but the others were not to know it, to suppose he was only paid one guilder.
The gentlemen's portmanteaus were carried up to their rooms, and half an hour later the three friends, having changed their dress, appeared, and inquired the way to the castle. Hansel advised them to go by the road, which--although it ran circuitously around the base of the mountain--would take them to the castle in an hour, and upon which there was no danger of their losing their way, rather than by the much shorter foot-path which led from the last house in the village, and upon which they might easily go astray. He described the foot-path to them, but counselled them, if they should decide to go by it, to hire some lad in the village to act as guide.
"Thanks, we will," Paul rejoined; and then the three walked briskly off up the valley in the direction of the castle.
Hansel gazed thoughtfully after them. "I have seen the black-bearded one somewhere!" he exclaimed to Loisel, "but I cannot for the life of me remember where."