'What do you make of this, then?' and I quoted the stuff about
birds with which they had greeted each other.

Wake looked interested. 'That's _Uber _allen _Gipfeln. Have you ever
read Goethe?'
'Never a word. And what do you make of that?' I pointed to a
flat rock below tide-mark covered with a tangle of seaweed. It was
of a softer stone than the hard stuff in the hills and somebody had
scraped off half the seaweed and a slice of the side. 'That wasn't
done yesterday morning, for I had my bath here.'

Wake got up and examined the place. He nosed about in the
crannies of the rocks lining the inlet, and got into the water again
to explore better. When he joined me he was smiling. 'I apologize
for my scepticism,' he said. 'There's been some petrol-driven craft
here in the night. I can smell it, for I've a nose like a retriever. I
daresay you're on the right track. Anyhow, though you seem to
know a bit about German, you could scarcely invent immortal poetry.'

We took our belongings to a green crook of the burn, and made
a very good breakfast. Wake had nothing in his pack but plasmon
biscuits and raisins, for that, he said, was his mountaineering
provender, but he was not averse to sampling my tinned stuff. He was a
different-sized fellow out in the hills from the anaemic intellectual of
Biggleswick. He had forgotten his beastly self-consciousness, and
spoke of his hobby with a serious passion. It seemed he had scrambled
about everywhere in Europe, from the Caucasus to the
Pyrenees. I could see he must be good at the job, for he didn't brag
of his exploits. It was the mountains that he loved, not wriggling
his body up hard places. The Coolin, he said, were his favourites,