voice again.

"Give the dog Lelaps a little corner of the settle," cried Hans
Eitelfritz. "He'll get his feet wet on the damp floor--for the rain
is trickling in--and take cold. This choice fellow isn't like ordinary
dogs."

"Do you call the tiger Lelaps?" asked Ulrich. "An odd name."

"I got him from a student at Tubingen, dainty Junker Fritz of Hallberg,
in exchange for an elephant's tusk I obtained in the Levant, and he owes
his name to the merry rogue. I tell you, he's wiser than many learned
men; he ought to be called Doctor Lelaps."

"He's a pretty creature."

"Pretty! More, far more! For instance, at Naples we had the famous
Mortadella sausage for breakfast, and being engaged in eager
conversation, I forgot him. What did my Lelaps do? He slipped quietly
into the garden, returned with a bunch of forget-me-nots in his mouth,
and offered it to me, as a gallant presents a bouquet to his fair one.
That meant: dogs liked sausage too, and it was not seemly to forget him.
What do you say to that show of sense?"

"I think your imagination more remarkable than the dog's sagacity."

"You believed in my good fortune in the old days, do you now doubt this
true story?"

"To be sure, that is rather preposterous, for whoever loyally and
faithfully trusts good-fortune--your good fortune--is ill-advised. Have
you composed any new songs?"

"'That is all over now!" sighed the trooper. "See this scar! Since an
infidel dog cleft my skull before Tunis, I can write no more verses;
yet it hasn't grown quiet in my upper story on that account. I lie now,
instead of composing. My boon companions enjoy the nonsensical trash,
when I pour it forth at the tavern."

"And the broken skull: is that a forget-me-not story too, or was it...."

"Look here! It's the actual truth. It was a bad blow, but there's a
grain of good in everything evil. For instance, we were in the African
desert just dying of thirst, for that belongs to the desert as much as
the dot does to the letter i. Lelaps yonder was with me, and scented
a spring. Then it was necessary to dig, but I had neither spade nor
hatchet, so I took out the loose part of the skull, it was a hard piece
of bone, and dug with it till the water gushed out of the sand, then I
drank out of my brain-pan as if it were a goblet."

"Man, man!" exclaimed Ulrich, striking his clenched fist on the table.

"Do you suppose a dog can't scent a spring?" asked Eitelfritz, with
comical wrath. "Lelap