led instead of strengthening the type.
Circumstances might have made anything of him in a small way; for, as
his countenance indicated, he had no very pronounced proclivities,
either good or bad. He had spent his boyhood in a gymnasium, where he
had had greater success in trading jack-knives than in grappling with
Cicero. He had made two futile attempts to enter the Berlin
University, and had settled down to the conviction that he had
mistaken his calling, as his tastes were military rather than
scholarly; but, as he was too old to rectify this mistake, he had
chosen to go to the Tyrol in search of pleasure rather than to the
Military Academy in search of distinction.

At the mouth of the great ravine of Dornauberg the travellers paused
and dismounted. Mr. Hahn called the guide, who was following behind
with a horse laden with baggage, and with his assistance a choice
repast, consisting of all manner of cold curiosities, was served on a
large flat rock. The senior Hahn fell to work with a will and made no
pretence of being interested in the sombre magnificence of the
Dornauberg, while Fritz found time for an occasional exclamation of
rapture, flavored with caviar, Rhine wine, and _pate de foie gras_.

"_Ach, Gott_, Fritz, what stuff you can talk!" grumbled his father,
sipping his Johannisberger with the air of a connoisseur. "When I was
of your age, Fritz, I had--hush, what is that?"

Mr. Hahn put down his glass with such an energy that half of the
precious contents was spilled.

"_Ach, du lieber Gott_," he cried a moment later. "_Wie wunderschon_!"

From a mighty cliff overhanging the road, about a hundred feet
distant, came a long yodling call, peculiar to the Tyrol, sung in a
superb ringing baritone. It soared over the mountain peaks and died
away somewhere among the Ingent glaciers. And just as the last faint
note was expiring, a girl's voice, fresh and clear as a dew-drop, took
it up and swelled it and carolled it until, from sheer excess of
delight, it broke into a hundred leaping, rolling, and warbling tones,
which floated and gambolled away over the highlands, while soft-winged
echoes bore them away into the wide distance.

"Father," said Fritz, who was now lying outstretched on a soft Scotch
plaid smoking the most fragrant of weeds; "if you can get those two
voices to the 'Haute Noblesse,' for the next season it is ten thousand
thalers in your pocket; and I shall only charge you ten per cent. for
the sug