rt. But now I want to tell you something." He
turned to Ritter. "With your kind permission, I'll go call Lobkowitz and,
what is more, I'll call Miss Eva. Just now, as I passed through her room,
she told me she would like to meet the hero of the _Roland_." Without
awaiting an answer, he left the room; and within a few moments Lobkowitz,
who collaborated with Ritter, and Miss Burns, the pupil, appeared.

After the conventional greetings were over, the little Madonna was used
as a welcome occasion for starting conversation again, which had begun to
lag a bit on the entrance of the newcomers. Willy held the statue, a
little less than three feet high, against different panels of the wall to
see how it looked for permanent placing there. A spot was finally chosen,
and the Madonna was fastened to it temporarily.

The stone-cutter's helper brought another bottle of the heavy, expensive
wine, more hock glasses, large Delft plates, and a mountain of
sandwiches. Though Frederick and Peter had declared they must end their
too lengthy visit, a fresh wave of conviviality swept over the company
and held them on. A half hour passed, and another half hour, and a whole
hour, and still the new friends were sitting over their German wine and
still they were discussing that inexhaustible theme so dear to all of
them, German art.

"It is an eternal shame," said Frederick, "that the spirit which created
the art of the old Greeks cannot be united with that profound German
spirit, an entirely new spirit, which characterises the works of Adam
Krafft, Veit Stoss, and Peter Vischer."

"Doctor von Kammacher," Miss Burns asked, "have you ever done any work in
sculpture?" Miss Burns spoke a correct German. Her father was a Dutchman,
her mother a German, and when her parents settled in London, she was only
a child of three.

"Doctor von Kammacher exudes talent at every pore," said Willy, answering
in Frederick's place. "I can testify to it." Willy Snyders' passion for
collecting had manifested itself while he was still a boy. Among his
treasures had been some copies of so-called "beer gazettes," humorous
sheets got up to be read at German students' merrymaking. The copies in
his possession contained sketches by Frederick, both of a humorous and
serious character.

"I exude talent?" Frederick exclaimed, blushing. "Never, Willy. I beg
of you, Miss Burns, don't believe that enthusiast of a schoolboy. If
I really have talent, those sketches of mine