“Well, Caspar,—the right way to do what? The right way to get out of the cave?”
“I hope so, brother.”
“But what do you propose?”
“I propose that we turn tallow-chandlers.”
“Tallow-chandlers! Poor boy!” soliloquised Karl; “I thought as much. O merciful Heaven, my dear brother! his reason is gone!”
Such were Karl’s painful surmises, though he kept them to himself.
“Yes, tallow-chandlers,” continued Caspar, in the same half-earnest, half-jocular way, “and make us a full set of candles.”
“And of what would you make your candles, dear Caspar?” inquired Karl, in a sympathising tone, and with the design of humouring his brother, rather than excite him by contradiction.
“Of what,” echoed Caspar, “what but the fat of this great bear?”
“Ha!” ejaculated Karl, suddenly changing his tone, as he perceived that Caspar’s madness had something of method in it, “the fat of the bear, you say?”