The big young man was silent for a moment or two, with his hands in his pockets and his legs stretched out. I begin to think I am in for it—the old story of blighted hopes and angry denunciation and hypocritical joy, and all the rest of it. But suddenly Charlie looks up with a businesslike air and says:
“Who is that doctor fellow you were speaking about! Shall we see him to-morrow?”
“You saw him to-night. It was he who passed us on the road with the two beagles.”
“What! that little fellow with the bandy legs and the spectacles?” he cries, with a great laugh.
“That little fellow,” I observe to him, “is a person of some importance, I can tell you. He—”
“I suppose his sister married a Geheimer-Ober-under—what the dickens is it?” says this disrespectful young man.
“Dr. Krumm has got the Iron Cross.”
“That won’t make his legs any the straighter.”
“He was at Weissenburg.”
“I suppose he got that cast in the eye there.”