Hans’s fork paused in mid-air and his mouth forgot to close. At the point where the German struck, the earth was very hard.
“So?” he interrogated, weakly. 135
At this juncture the difference between the two Minnas, which had been transferred from the table to the kitchen, was resumed; and although Ichabod ate the remaining kraut to the last shred, and Camilla talked to Hans of the Vaterland in his native German, each knew the occasion was a failure. An ideal had been raised, the ideal of a Napoleon of finance, a banker; and that ideal materializing, lo there stood forth a farmer! Ach Gott von Himmel!
After dinner Hans stood in the doorway and pointed out the land-office. Ichabod thanked him, and under the impulse of habit felt in his pocket for a cigar. None was there, and all at once he remembered Ichabod Maurice did not smoke. Strange he should have such an abominable inclination to do so just then; but nevertheless the fact remained. Ichabod Maurice never had smoked.
He started up the street.
A small man, with very high boots and a very long moustache, sat tipped back in the sun in front of the land-office. He was telling a story; a good one, judging from the attention of the row of listeners. He grasped the chair tightly 136 with his left hand while his right, holding a cob pipe, gesticulated actively. The story halted abruptly as Ichabod came up.
“Howdy!” greeted the little man.
Maurice nodded.
“Don’t let me interrupt you,” he temporized.
“Not at all,” courtesied the teller of stories, as he led the way inside. “I’ve told that one until I’m tired of it, anyway.” He tapped the ashes from his pipe-bowl, meditatively. “A fellow has to kill the time some way, though, you know.”