TWO AUGURS.


Fortunately for the student, the night birds whom he met and to whom in
asking information to arrive at the Persepolitan Hotel, he gave
preference over the policemen, felt a fellow feeling for a man pallid,
tottering, and in clothes which had suffered during his scramble through
the exhausted mines underlaying Munich.

He reached the hotel before dawn and was not sorry to find it one of
those old-fashioned hostelries continuing traditions of the
posting-houses, where he might not expect to be challenged because of
his appearance. In the stable yard, between a half-awakened horse and a
sleepy watchdog, who received the new guest with a blinking eye and
affectionate tongue, an ostler was washing down a ramshackle chaise.
Claudius guessed that it was prepared for his flight and his heart
warmed at this proof of the Jew having counted on his coming, though
belated. The shock-headed man, clattering over the rounded stones in
wooden shoes, made to fit by the insertion of straw around his naked
feet, no sooner heard him name Herr Daniels as the one expecting him,
than he bade him welcome in a cordial tone which his surly face had not
presaged.

"I suppose he is asleep," he said, "but he left word that he was to be
aroused at any hour on your coming. I am not allowed within doors in my
stable dress," he added, "but you will have no trouble in finding the
rooms. It is that one where the candle burns, one floor above, numbers
11, 12 and 13--the number is unlucky for a Christian, but that does not
matter for the likes of them!--and a lamp burns at the turn of the
stairs. The back door is on the latch."