icit; I will use the indicative mood, present tense.
Now then. I like Cologne; I like the cathedral of that town; I like the
Hotel du Nord; and, above all, I love the railway station."

"Are you raving?"

"Did you ever examine the Cologne railway station?" he went on, lighting
a cigar. "There is a great big waiting-room, which they lock up; there
is a delightful place in which you may get lost, and find yourself
suddenly alone in a deserted wing of the building, with an impertinent
porter, who doesn't understand one word of Eng--of your native tongue--"

"Are you mad?" was my varied comment.

"And while you are in the greatest distress, separated from your
friends, who have gone on to Elberthal (like mine), and struggling to
make this porter understand you, you may be encountered by a mooning
individual--a native of the land--and you may address him. He drives the
fumes of music from his brain, and looks at you, and finds you
charming--more than charming. My dear Friedhelm, the look in your eyes
is quite painful to see. By the exercise of a little diplomacy, which,
as you are charmingly naive, you do not see through, he manages to seal
an alliance by which you and he agree to pass three or four hours in
each other's society, for mutual instruction and entertainment. The
entertainment consists of cutlets, potatoes--the kind called kartoffeln
frittes, which they give you very good at the Nord--and the wine known
to us as Doctorberger. The instruction is varied, and is carried on
chiefly in the aisle of the Koelner Dom, to the sound of music. And when
he is quite spell-bound, in a magic circle, a kind of golden net or
cloud, he pulls out an earthly watch, made of dust and dross ('More fool
he,' your eye says, and you are quite right), and sees that time is
advancing. A whole army of horned things with stings, called feelings of
propriety, honor, correctness, the right thing, etc., come in thick
battalions in _sturmschritt_ upon him, and with a hasty word he hurries
her--he gets off to the station. There is still an hour, for both are
coming to Elberthal--an hour of unalloyed delight; then"--he snapped his
fingers--"a drosky, an address, a crack of the whip, and _ade_!"

I sat and stared at him while he wound up this rhodomontade by singing:

"Ade, ade, ade!
Ja, Scheiden und Meiden thut Weh!"

"You are too young and fair," he presently resumed, "too slight and
sober for apoplexy; but a painful fear seizes