"You are American, then?" said the stranger, looking at him with some curiosity; and from this beginning, their acquaintance ripened fast. The German, regarding his companion as a young man of more intelligence than experience, conversed with an ease and frankness which fast gained upon Morton's confidence. He proved, indeed, a storehouse of information, discoursing of the people, the country, and even the government, with little reserve, and an admirable copiousness and minuteness of knowledge. At length he asked Morton if he had any acquaintance in Austria.
"None, excepting one or two persons at Vienna, to whom I had letters."
"Then you have probably made agreeable acquaintances. The society of Vienna is a very pleasant one."
"My letters were, or purported to be, to savans and literary men."
"There, too, you should have found persons well worth the meeting."
"I have no doubt of it."
"You do not speak," said the investigating stranger, with a smile, "like one who has been much pleased with his experience."
"I have had no opportunity to judge fairly of the Viennese savans."
"Your letters gave you no opportunity?"
"They were given me at Paris, in a rather singular way; and, to say the truth, the persons to whom they introduced me were so little to my taste, that after delivering one or two of them, I determined not to use the rest."