The other favourite pastime was drawing mazes on paper, labyrinths of
winding paths which must be traversed by a pencil point. The task was to
construct a maze so complicated that the other could not find his way
out, starting at the middle. We would sit down at opposite ends of the
room to construct our mysteries of blind alleys and misleading passages,
then each one would be turned loose in the "irrgarten" drawn by the
other. Ingo would stand at my side while I tried in obstinate stupidity
to find my way through his little puzzle; his eager heart inside his
sailor blouse would pound like a drum when I was nearing the dangerous
places where an exit might be won. He would hold his breath so audibly,
and his blue eyes would grow so anxious, that I always knew when not to
make the right turning, and my pencil would wander on in hopeless
despair until he had mercy on me and led me to freedom.

After lunch every day, while waiting for the mail-coach to come
trundling up the valley, Ingo and I used to sit in the little balcony
under the eaves, reading. He introduced me to his favourite book _Till
Eulenspiegel_, and we sped joyously through the adventures of that
immortal buffoon of German folk-lore. We took turns reading aloud: every
paragraph or so I would appeal for an explanation of something.
Generally I understood well enough, but it was such a delight to hear
Ingo strive to make the meaning plain. What a puckering of his bright
boyish forehead, what a grave determination to elucidate the fable! What
a mingling of ecstatic pride in having a grown man as pupil, with
deference due to an elder. Ingo was a born gentleman and in his fiercest
transports of glee never forgot his manners! I would make some purposely
ludicrous shot at the sense, and he would double up with innocent mirth.
His clear laughter would ring out, and his mother, pacing a digestive
stroll on the highway below us, would look up crying in the German way,
"_Gott! wie er freut sich_!" The progress of our reading was held up by
these interludes, but I could never resist the temptation to start Ingo
explaining.

Ingo having made me free of his dearest book, it was only fair to
reciprocate. So one day Lloyd and I bicycled down to Freiburg, and
there, at a heavenly "bookhandler's," I found a copy of 'Treasure
Island' in German. Then there was revelry in the balcony! I read the
tale aloud, and I wish R.L.S. might have seen the shining of Ingo's
eyes! Alas,