lodge, his proper place, all the day over he is amongst the dusty books
and parchments belonging to the family. He comes and goes along the
shelves of the library just like a big cat. Knapwurst knows our story
better than we know it ourselves. He would tell you the longest tales,
Fritz, if you would only let him. He calls them chronicles--ha, ha!"

And Sperver, with the wine mounting a little into his head, began to
laugh, he could hardly say why.

"So then, Gideon, you call this tower, Hugh's tower the Hugh Lupus
tower?"

"Haven't I told you so already? What are you so astonished at?"

"Nothing particular."

"But you are. I can see it in your face. You are thinking of something
strange. What is it?"

"Oh, never mind! It is not the name of the tower which surprises me. What
I am wondering at is, how it is that you, an old poacher, who had never
lived anywhere since you were a boy but amongst the fir forests, between
the snowy summits of the Wald Horn and the passes of the Rhéthal--you
who, during all your prime of life, thought it the finest of fun to laugh
at the count's gamekeepers, and to scour the mountain paths of the
Schwartzwald, and boat the bushes there, and breathe the free air, and
bask in the bright sunshine amongst the hills and valleys--here I find
you, at the end of sixteen years of such a life, shut up in this red
granite hole. That is what surprises me and what I cannot understand.
Come, Sperver, light your pipe, and tell me all about it."