Everyone assured me laughingly that it did not matter. They gave me a towel to wipe myself with, and we went on with the game. Soon it was eleven o'clock.
I felt a vague displeasure at Edwarda's laugh. I looked at her, and found that her face had become insignificant, hardly even pretty. At last Herr Mack broke off the game, saying that his assistants must go to bed; then he leaned back on the sofa and began talking about putting up a sign in front of his place. He asked my advice about it. What colour did I think would be best? I was not interested, and answered “black,” without thinking at all. And Herr Mack at once agreed:
“Black, yes—exactly what I had been thinking myself. 'Salt and barrels' in heavy black letters—that ought to look as nice as anything... Edwarda, isn't it time you were going to bed?”
Edwarda rose, shook hands with us both, said good-night, and left the room. We sat on. We talked of the railway that had been finished last year, and of the first telegraph line. “Wonder when we shall have the telegraph up here.”
Pause.
“It's like this,” said Herr Mack. “Time goes on, and here am I, six-and-forty, and hair and beard gone grey. You might see me in the daytime and say I was a young man, but when the evening comes along, and I'm all alone, I feel it a good deal. I sit here mostly playing patience. It works out all right as a rule, if you fudge a little. Haha!”
“If you fudge a little?” I asked.
“Yes.”
I felt as if I could read in his eyes...
He got up from his seat, walked over to the window, and looked out; he stooped a little, and the back of his neck was hairy. I rose in my turn. He looked round and walked towards me in his long, pointed shoes, stuck both thumbs in his waistcoat pockets, waved his arms a little, as if they were wings, and smiled. Then he offered me his boat again if ever I wanted one, and held out his hand.