ked him a great many questions: our
conversation was rather like the catechism: the moment I stopped asking
_him_ questions, he began asking me!"

CHAPTER XII.

Three long days--all blue and gold--blue sky and gold sunshine--roll
away. If Schmidt, the courier, _has_ a fault, it is over-driving us. We
visit the Gruene Gewoelbe, the Japanese Palace, the Zwinger--and we visit
them _alone_. Dresden is not a very large place, yet in no part of it,
in none of its bright streets--in neither its old nor its new market, in
none of its public places, do I catch a glimpse of my new acquaintance.
Neither does he come to call. This last fact surprises me a little, and
disappoints me a good deal. Our walk at the Linnisches Bad in the gay
lamplight, his character, his conversation, even his appearance, begin
to undergo a transformation in my mind. After all, he was not _really_
dark--not one of those black men, against whom Barbara and I have always
lifted up our testimonies; by daylight, I think his eyes would have been
hazel. He certainly was very easy to talk to. One had not to pump up
conversation for him, and I do not suppose that, _as men go_, he was
_really_ very touchy. One cannot expect everybody to be so jest-hardened
and robustly good-tempered as the boys. Often before now I have only
been able to gauge the unfortunateness of my speeches to men, by the
rasping effect they have had on their tempers, and which has often taken
me honestly by surprise.

"_Again_, Mr. Musgrave has not been to call," say I, one afternoon, on
returning from a long and rather grilling drive, speaking in a slightly
annoyed tone.

"Did you expect that he would?" asks Sir Roger, with a smile. "I think
that, after the searching snub you gave him, he would have been a bolder
man than I take him for, if he had risked his head in the lion's mouth."

"_Am_ I such a lion?" say I, with an accent of vexation. "_Did_ I snub
him? I am sure I had no more idea of snubbing him than I had of snubbing
_you_; that is the way in which I always cut my own throat!"

I draw a chair into the balcony, where he has already established
himself with his cigar, and sit down beside him.

"I foresee," say I, beginning to laugh rather grimly, "that a desert
will spread all round our house! your friends will disappear before my
tongue, like morning mist."

"Let them!"

After a pause, edging a little nearer to him, and, regardless of the
hay-carts in the market b