stretched his feet out before him and stared silently into vacancy.

Herr Aquanus, the host, walked from one table to another, and when he
at last reached the one where the officers sat, paused opposite to the
Thuringian, saying:

"Where are your thoughts, Junker? One would scarcely know you during the
last few days. What has come over you?"

Georg hastily sat erect, stretched himself like a person roused from
sleep, and answered pleasantly:

"Dreams come in idleness."

"The cage is getting too narrow for him," said Captain Van der Laen.
"If this state of things lasts long, we shall all get dizzy like the
sheep."

"And as stiff as the brazen Pagan god on the shelf yonder," added Colonel
Mulder.

"There was the same complaint during the first siege," replied the host,
"but Herr von Noyelles drowned his discontent and emptied many a cask of
my best liquor."

"Tell the gentlemen how he paid you," cried Colonel Mulder.

"There hangs the paper framed," laughed Aquarius. "Instead of sending
money, he wrote this: