d supper,
since the morning slumbers of the host lasted too long for the
industrious guest to wait breakfast for him. Moreover, they could never
come together without getting into some discussion, which was always
welcome to Rossel, and, as he asserted, highly favorable to his
digestion at any time of the day except in the morning. The more he saw
of him the more pleasure Rossel took in this singular, self-communing
man, who, bloodless, insignificant-looking, and unsophisticated as he
seemed, bore about with him a truly royal self-respect, and the
consciousness of immeasurable joys and possessions, without for a
moment demanding that any mortal being should acknowledge his inherent
sovereign rights.

Then, too, though he was so unassuming and so thankful for proffered
friendship, he conducted himself toward his host with perfect freedom,
for he held the most sublime doctrines in regard to the earthly goods
that were lacking in his own case, but were so richly at the disposal
of his friend.

A little veranda, with a roof supported on wooden pillars and overgrown
with wild grape-vines, had been built out into the lake. A table and a
few garden-chairs stood upon it, and from it one could look far away
over the beautiful, unruffled water and the distant mountains. At night
it was delicious to lean over the balustrade and see the moon and stars
dancing in the waves. The nights were still warm, and the scent of the
roses was wafted over from the garden; on a day like this one could sit
in the open air until midnight.

Fat Rossel had seated himself in an American rocking-chair, with his
back toward the lake; a narghili stood by his side, and on the table,
in a cooler, was a bottle of Rhine wine, from which he filled his own
and his friend's glass from time to time. Kohle sat opposite him, his
elbows resting on the table, his shabby black hat pulled down over his
forehead, from beneath which his eyes gleamed fixedly and earnestly out
of the shadow like those of some night-bird. They appeared to be
magically attracted by the lines of silver that furrowed the lake, and
it was only when he spoke that he slowly raised them to the level of
his friend's high, white forehead, from which the fez was pushed back.
Rossel wore his Persian dressing gown, and his silky black beard hung
picturesquely down upon his breast. Even in the moonlight Kohle looked
very shabby in comparison with him, like a dervish by the side of an
emir. The tru