bring Hermann's slippers and his embroidered calotte, which he assumed
pontifically, talking (about me) all the time. Billows of white stuff
lay between the chairs on the cabin floor; I caught the words "Zwei und
dreissig Pfund" repeated several times, and presently came the beer,
which seemed delicious to my throat, parched with running and the
emotions of the chase.

I didn't get away till well past midnight, long after the women had
retired. Hermann had been trading in the East for three years or more,
carrying freights of rice and timber mostly. His ship was well known in
all the ports from Vladivostok to Singapore. She was his own property.
The profits had been moderate, but the trade answered well enough while
the children were small yet. In another year or so he hoped he would
be able to sell the old Diana to a firm in Japan for a fair price. He
intended to return home, to Bremen, by mail boat, second class, with
Mrs. Hermann and the children. He told me all this stolidly, with slow
puffs at his pipe. I was sorry when knocking the ashes out he began
to rub his eyes. I would have sat with him till morning. What had I to
hurry on board my own ship for? To face the broken rifled drawer in my
state-room. Ugh! The very thought made me feel unwell.

I became their daily guest, as you know. I think that Mrs. Hermann from
the first looked upon me as a romantic person. I did not, of course,
tear my hair _coram populo_ over my loss, and she took it for lordly
indifference. Afterwards, I daresay, I did tell them some of my
adventures--such as they were--and they marvelled greatly at the extent
of my experience. Hermann would translate what he thought the most
striking passages. Getting up on his legs, and as if delivering a
lecture on a phenomenon, he addressed himself, with gestures, to the two
women, who would let their sewing sink slowly on their laps. Meantime