"A worthy man," answered the Professor, again stopping, "but his manner is different from what we are accustomed to."
"He is of old Saxon origin," the Doctor proceeded, "broad shoulders, giant height, open countenance, solidity in every movement. The children also are of the same type," he continued; "the daughter is somewhat of a Thusnelda."
"The similitude does not apply," rejoined the Professor, roughly, continuing his walk.
Fritz drew off the second boot in a slightly discordant mood.
"How does the eldest boy please you? He has the bright hair of his sister."
"No comparison," said the Professor, again laconically.
Fritz placed both boots before the bed, and himself upon it, and said with decision:
"I am ready to respect your humor, even when I cannot quite understand it; but I beg you to take into consideration that we have forced ourselves on the hospitality of these people, and that we ought not to take advantage of it beyond to morrow morning."
"Fritz," cried the Professor, with deep feeling, "you are my dear, true friend; have patience with me to-day!" So saying, he turned round, and breaking off the conversation, approached the window.
Fritz was almost beside himself with anxiety. This noble man, so confident in all he wrote, so full of deliberation, and so firm in decision, even with regard to the obscurest passages--and now some emotion was working in him which shook his whole being. How could this man be so disturbed? He could look back with majestic clearness on a past of many thousand years, and now he was standing at a window looking at a cow-stable, and something like a sigh sounded through the room. And what was to come of it? These thoughts occupied incessantly the Doctor's mind.