Seeing that no exchange of communication was possible between us, and feeling that my intrusion was chiefly responsible for his agitation, I told my little friends that we had better go. They seemed delighted to have exhibited this creature to me.
“I think we should not laugh at him,” I said, as we resumed our homeward way. “His brain is evidently not right and he is sick. Why do you call him the gray meteor?”
“Is he not gray—his coat?” piped up young Egbert.
“Yes, but—meteor.”
“Ach, he come nobody know where—like out of the sky.”
As I looked back I could see the poor creature kneeling over his charred fire rubbing one stick across another so that it looked as if he were playing a violin.
II
Tells of my visit with the Gray Meteor and of how I entertained him and of his call upon me.
You will believe that I lost no time in quizzing my host about this mysterious “gray meteor.”
“Ach,” said he, “some deserter. Geneva and Locle are full uff them.”