"Niedersdorf, mein Herr?" said he, in answer to my inquiry. "About four miles farther on. You have but to keep straight forward."
"Many thanks," I said. "You were resting. I am sorry to have disturbed you."
He put up his hand with a deprecating gesture.
"It is nothing," he said. "I have walked far, and the day is warm."
"I have only walked from Heilbronn, and yet I am tired. Pray don't let me keep you standing."
"Will you also sit, mein Herr?" he asked with a pleasant smile. "There is shade for both."
So I sat down, and we fell into conversation. I began by offering him a cigar; but he pulled out his pipe—a great dangling German pipe, with a flexible tube and a painted china bowl like a small coffee-cup.
"A thousand thanks," he said; "but I prefer this old pipe to all the cigars that ever came out of Havannah. It was given to me eight years ago, when I was a student; and my friend who gave it to me is dead."
"You were at Heidelberg?" I said interrogatively.
"Yes; and Fritz (that was my friend) was at Heidelberg also. He was a wonderful fellow; a linguist, a mathematician, a botanist, a geologist. He was only five-and-twenty when the government appointed him naturalist to an African exploring party; and in Africa he died."