Hans made no reply, but silently proceeded to his bedroom window, through which I saw his gigantic figure disappear, and re-appear after the lapse of a few minutes. He rejoined me with a couple of glasses in his hand and two bottles of wine under his arm, which he set down on the old table, drew two more bottles out of his coat pockets and laid them on the sand, pulled out his hunting-knife and uncorked the first pair, and then pushing one over to me, remarked:
"Drink off the half or the whole of that and you will feel better."
That was just the old Hans exactly, with his universal specific against all slings and arrows of outrageous fortune! Alas, it had proved but a poor panacea to the good fellow, and would probably be of little service to me, but I could not help feeling how kindly he meant it, and my hand trembled as I poured the wine for both, and my voice was unsteady as I clinked glasses with him, saying:
"To your health, dear Hans, and a better future to both of us."
"Don't know where it is to come from for me," said Hans, draining his glass at a draught, and filling both again.
"Hans, my dear good fellow," I said, "please don't speak in that dismal tone: I cannot stand it this evening: I feel every moment as if my heart was about to break."
Hans was about to push the bottle to me again, but remembered that I had already declined his universal specific, so he handed his cigar-case to me across the table.
In a minute two bright points were glowing in the dark arbor, throwing a faint glimmer upon the rickety table with the bottles, and upon the faces of two men that leaned over it in a long confidential conversation.
"It is so," said one at last.
"You will find yourself mistaken, as I was," replied the other.