"Peter!" said Lancelot, his flash of gaiety dying away, "I tell you these things as a friend, not as a beggar. If you look upon me as the second, I cease to be the first."
"But, man, I owe you the money; and if it will enable you to hold out a little longer—why, in Heaven's name, shouldn't you—?"
"You don't owe me the money at all; I made no bargain with you; I am not a moneylender."
"Pack dick sum Henker!" growled Peter, with a comical grimace. "Was für a casuist! What a swindler you'd make! I wonder you have the face to deny the debt. Well, and how did you leave Frau Sauer-Kraut?" he said, deeming it prudent to sheer off the subject.
"Fat as a Christmas turkey."
"Or a German sausage. The extraordinary things that woman stuffed herself with!—chunks of fat, stewed apples, Kartoffel salad—all mixed up in one plate, as in a dustbin."
"Don't! You make my gorge rise. Ach Himmel! to think that this nation should be musical! O Music, heavenly maid, how much garlic I have endured for thy sake!"
"Ha! ha! ha!" laughed Peter, putting down his whisky that he might throw himself freely back in the easy chair and roar.
"O that garlic!" he said, panting. "No wonder they smoked so much in Leipsic. Even so they couldn't keep the reek out of the staircases. Still, it's a great country is Germany. Our house does a tremendous business in German patents."
"A great country? A land of barbarians rather. How can a people be civilised that eats jam with its meat?"