“Singing it.”
“Oho! Let us investigate. I may be able to tell the genuine article better than you.”
We went in. In the passage Lindheim touched me on the arm and I stopped. From the inner room came a man’s voice, an Englishman’s evidently, singing in a more or less burlesque fashion:
“The plighted ring he wore
Was crushed and wet with gore.
Yet ere he doied
He bravely croied
I’ve kept the vow I swore-hoa-hore,
I’ve ke-he-hept the vo-how-how I swore.”
“An Englishman?” I asked the landlord who came to tell us our dinner was ready.
“Yes, an Englishman,” he answered. “He shoots the birds and hares for miles.”
“He lives here?”
“No, mein Herr. He lives up in the hills, a good step from here. But he always comes to my house when he is near for a schoppen of lager-beer or a glass of schnaps.”
“Ah! Then he has been here for some time?”
“A month, two months, I think.”