"And where is your tent, doctor?"
"A few doors further on."
"Are you very sleepy?"
"Not particularly so."
"Well, then, permit me to go with you to your room for a few minutes. I feel the very natural desire to smoke a good cigar in sensible company after all the nonsense which I have heard talked and which I have talked myself."
"Well, come," said Oswald, who would much rather have been alone, but who had too high an idea of the duty of hospitality to refuse so direct a request. "I am doubtful, however, whether my cigars will be good enough and my company sensible enough."
"For Heaven's sake! No more compliments for to-day," cried Mr. Timm. "I have had more than enough, I assure you. Pray, show me the way----"
"A charming tent," said Mr. Timm, as they entered the room. Oswald lighted the lamp on the table before the sofa and took a box of cigars from his bureau. "A very nice tub for a cynic who occasionally attends lectures with the Sybarites; really famous, too comfortable for my taste. That big arm-chair in the window, from which one can look so cosily on one side into the garden, and on the other, 'still and deeply moved,' upon that beautiful Apollo there; nature and art vis-à-vis and one's self between, as the aëronaut said when he fell from his balloon.--This cigar is superb, genuine Habana, and no stinkador--do you smoke? no? and you keep such a weed for your friends and acquaintances!--Most noble of men! Saint Crispin is a highwayman in comparison with you! What is that in the very suspicious-looking bottle up there on the book-shelf? I verily believe it is Cognac----"
"And very good old Cognac," said Oswald. "At least my friend Mr. Wrampe, the steward, says so, who has almost forced me to accept this bottle,--probably smugglers' ware----"
"And never yet opened! Me Hercule! We must really see if the steward has told the truth. Do you ever drink grog?"