"You're a curious fellow, you and your 'titles,'" the stranger said, raising his voice. "If a man who knows a number of secrets and mysteries, and can give good counsel too, is one of your 'privy' or 'secret' councillors, I think I may so style myself. I am surprised that a gentleman who is so well versed in ancient writings and curious manuscripts as you are, dear Mr. Tussmann, Clerk of the Privy Chancery, should not know that when an expert--an expert, observe!--knocks at the door of this Tower here--or even on the wall of it, on the night of the autumnal equinox, there will appear to him, up at yonder window, the girl who is to be the happiest and luckiest sweetheart in Berlin till the spring equinox comes round."
"Mr. Privy Councillor," Tussmann cried, as if in a sudden inspiration, and with joyful rapture--"Most respected Mr. Privy Councillor! is that really the case?"
"It is," said the stranger. "But what's the good of our standing in the street here any longer? It is past your bed time. Let us go to the new wine-shop in Alexander Street; just that you may hear a little more about this young lady, and recover your peace of mind, which something--I have no idea what--has disturbed so tremendously."
Tussmann was a most abstemious person. His sole recreation (for "dissipation" we cannot term it) consisted in his spending an hour or two every evening in a café; where, whilst he read assiduously political and other articles in newspapers, as well as books which he brought with him, he sipped a glass of good beer. Wine he seldom touched, except that after service on Sundays he allowed himself a small glass of Malaga with a biscuit, in a certain restaurant. To go about dissipating at nights was an abomination in his eyes. So that it seemed incomprehensible how, on this particular occasion, he allowed the stranger, who hurried away towards Alexander Street with long strides, resounding in the darkness, to carry him away with him without a word of objection.
When they came into the wine-shop there was nobody there but one single customer, sitting by himself at a table, with a big glass of Rhine wine before him. The depth of the wrinkled lines on his face indicated extreme age. His eyes were sharp and piercing, and his grand beard marked him as a Hebrew, faithful to the ancient laws and customs of his people. Also his costume was very much in the old Frankish style, as people dressed about the year 1720; and perhaps that was why he had the effect of having come back to life out of a period of remote antiquity.
But the stranger whom Tussmann had come across was still more remarkable of aspect.
A tall, meagre man, powerfully formed as to his limbs and muscles, seemingly about fifty years of age. His face might once have passed for handsome, and the great eyes still flashed out from under the black bushy eyebrows with youthful fire and vigour. The brow was broad and open; the nose strongly aquiline. All this would not have distinguished him from a thousand others. But, whilst his coat and trousers were of the fashion of the present day, his collar, his cloak, and his barret cap belonged to the latter part of the sixteenth century. But it was more especially the wonderful eyes of the man, and the blaze of them (which seemed to come streaming out of deep mysterious night), and the hollow tones of his voice, and his whole bearing--all in the most absolute contrast with things of the present day--it was, we say, all these things taken together which made everybody experience a strong sense of eeriness in his proximity.
He nodded to the man who was sitting at the table as if to an old acquaintance.
"Ha!" he cried, "here you are again, after all this time. How do you feel? Are you all alive and kicking?"
"Just as you see," the old man growled. "Sound as a roach. All ready on my legs at the proper time. All there--when there's anything up."