"Such a man," said I, "was a loss to the world."
"Ah, yes," he replied simply; "but a greater loss to me."
To this I could answer nothing; and for some minutes we smoked in silence.
"I was not clever like Fritz," he went on presently. "When I left Heidelberg, I went into business, I am a brewer, and I live at Stuttgart. My name is Gustav Bergheim—what is yours?"
"Hamilton," I replied; "Chandos Hamilton."
He repeated the name after me.
"You are an Englishman?" he said.
I nodded.
"Good. I like the English. There was an Englishman at Heidelberg—such a good fellow! his name was Smith. Do you know him?"
I explained that, in these fortunate islands, there were probably some thirty thousand persons named Smith, of whom, however, I did not know one.