Sonnenkamp requested Eric to escort his fellow-teacher a part of the way, and handed him several gold pieces, which he was to give to the needy-looking man in a suitable manner.
"Is this friendly confidence, or is it expected as a service?" Eric asked himself, as he went after the stranger.
He overtook him near the park-wall, and when Eric represented himself to be also a teacher, the countenance of the professor changed, and he exclaimed:—
"Ah! a teacher then, and perhaps my competitor?"
Eric answered in the affirmative.
Crutius looked sour at this; he had been gratified at the friendly encouragement of the captain, whom he took to be an inmate of the family, and he was grateful to him for the praise he had given him; but now he turned out to be a teacher too! He gnashed his teeth a little over this mistake.
Eric tendered him the present of gold with great delicacy, putting himself on an equality with the stranger, making known his own poverty, and declaring how impossible it often was not to accept from those who had means.
"Ha! ha!" the stranger laughed out. "He knows me; he wishes to put me under obligation and release himself!"
Eric said that he did not understand such expressions.
"Indeed!" the stranger said, laughing. "So innocence with a captain's rank allows itself also to be bought? The whole world is nothing but an old rag-shop. What matter! The den where the tiger devours his prey is very fine and very tasty! paint and tapestry can cover up a good deal! I ask your pardon, I have taken wine this morning, and I am not used to it. Well, hand it over! My most humble compliments to Villa Eden! Ha! ha! a very nice name!"