The Malay shook his head. Evidently his progress in the German tongue was slow, and the negro, who was much farther advanced, was obliged to come to his assistance frequently.
"It is the master's fault; he talks your gibberish to you too often," Veit Gronau grumbled. "If I did not insist upon your speaking German neither of you would understand a syllable of it. There! now the table is ready. All fruit and flowers, and nothing really fit to eat and drink. That, I suppose, is romantic; I think it crazy, which is very much the same thing, after all."
"Are there ladies coming?" Said asked, inquisitively.
"Unfortunately, yes. It is no pleasure, but an honour, for in this country they are treated with immense respect, very differently from your black and brown women; so behave yourselves!"
He would probably have continued his admonitions, but at this moment the door opened and the master of the house entered. He glanced at the table loaded with flowers and fruit, signed to Said to retire to the antechamber, spoke a few words in some Indian tongue to Djelma, who straightway disappeared, and then turning to Veit Gronau, said, "President Nordheim has sent an excuse, but the rest are coming; Herr Gersdorf has also accepted. You will escape for this time the encounter you have so dreaded, Gronau."
"Dreaded?" the other repeated. "Hardly that! It certainly would have given me no great pleasure to meet an old playmate with whom I was once on most familiar terms, and to be honoured by him with a condescending nod when I was presented to him as a kind of servant."
"As my secretary?" Waltenberg said, with emphasis. "I should not suppose such a position could be in any wise humiliating."
Gronau shrugged his shoulders: "Secretary, steward, travelling companion, all in one. True, you have always treated me like a fellow-countryman, and not as an inferior, Herr Waltenberg. When you picked me up in Melbourne I was very near starvation, and I should have starved but for you. God requite you!"
"Nonsense!" said Ernst, repudiating his gratitude almost harshly. "You were a priceless discovery for me, with your knowledge of languages and your practical experience, and I think we have been well content with each other for these six years. So the president was one of your playmates?"
"Yes, we were the children of neighbours, and grew up together until life parted us, sending one hither and the other thither. He always prophesied to me, and to Benno Reinsfeld, who was one of us, that I should be a poor devil."