The Professor quoted Dr. Johnson and Charles Lamb, remarking that he understood their taste better than that of those persons who indulge in ill-defined and windy raptures about scenery and the weather.
'But we cannot all have the tastes of great scholars,' I said rather coldly, for I did not like the expression windy raptures.
'If thou meanest me by great scholars, thou female babe, know that my years and poor rudiments of learning have served only to make it clear to me that the best things in life are of the class to which sitting under one umbrella with a dear little cousin belong. I endeavoured yesterday to impress this result of experience on the long Englishman, but he is still knee-deep in theories, and cannot yet see the simple and the close at hand.'
'I don't care one little bit for the umbrella form of joy,' I said obstinately. 'It is the blankest dulness compared to the joy to be extracted from looking at a place like Vitt in fine weather.'
'Tut, tut,' said the Professor, 'talk not to me of weather. Thou dost not mean it from thy heart.' And he arranged the rug afresh round me so that I should not get wet, and inquired solicitously why I did not wear a waterproof cloak like his, which was so very praktisch.
From Vitt the road to Arkona describes a triangle of which the village of Putgarten is the apex, and round which it took us half an hour to drive. We got to Arkona, which consists solely of a lighthouse with an inn in it, about one.
'Now for the little Lot,' cried the Professor leaping out into the rain and hastening towards the emerging landlord, while I hurriedly rehearsed the main points of my arguments.
But Charlotte was not there. She had been there, the landlord said, the previous afternoon, having arrived by steamer; had asked for a bedroom, been shown one, but had wanted better accommodation than he could give. Anyhow after drinking coffee she had hired a conveyance and had gone on to Wiek.
The Professor was terribly crestfallen. 'We will go on, then,' he said. 'We will at once proceed to Wiek. Where Wiek is, I conclude we shall ultimately discover.'
'I know where it is—it's on the map.'