“Thanks; where do you come from?”

“Bohemia, Prague.”

“And where are you going?”

“To Novorossysk.”

“What for?”

“On business.”

“My name is Heinrich Walter. I am a professor in Munich. With my wife and nephew I am on my way to the Crimea for practical study.”

He said these words in a tone just touched with irony. I meditated for a moment as just how best to classify the dry example of professorship.

“For geological study?”

“No—Callobiotic.