it was not Lindau who was dead, for the woman
said he was at home, and sent March stumbling up the four or five dark
flights of stairs that led to his tenement. It was quite at the top
of the house, and when March obeyed the German-English "Komm!" that
followed his knock, he found himself in a kitchen where a meagre
breakfast was scattered in stale fragments on the table before the
stove. The place was bare and cold; a half-empty beer bottle scarcely
gave it a convivial air. On the left from this kitchen was a room with
a bed in it, which seemed also to be a cobbler's shop: on the right,
through a door that stood ajar, came the German-English voice again,
saying this time, "Hier!"

XII.

March pushed the door open into a room like that on the left, but with
a writing-desk instead of a cobbler's bench, and a bed, where Lindau sat
propped up; with a coat over his shoulders and a skull-cap on his head,
reading a book, from which he lifted his eyes to stare blankly over
his spectacles at March. His hairy old breast showed through the
night-shirt, which gaped apart; the stump of his left arm lay upon the
book to keep it open.

"Ah, my tear yo'ng friendt! Passil! Marge! Iss it you?" he called out,
joyously, the next moment.

"Why, are you sick, Lindau?" March anxiously scanned his face in taking
his hand.

Lindau laughed. "No; I'm all righdt. Only a lidtle lazy, and a lidtle
eggonomigal. Idt's jeaper to stay in pedt sometimes as to geep a fire
a-goin' all the time. Don't wandt to gome too hardt on the 'brafer
Mann', you know:

"Braver Mann, er schafft mir zu essen."

You remember? Heine? You readt Heine still? Who is your favorite boet
now, Passil? You write some boetry yourself yet? No? Well, I am gladt
to zee you. Brush those baperss off of that jair. Well, idt is goodt for
zore eyess. How didt you findt where I lif?

"They told me at Maroni's," said March. He tried to keep his eyes on
Lindau's face, and not see the discomfort of the room, but he was aware
of the shabby and frowsy bedding, the odor of stale smoke, and the pipes
and tobacco shreds mixed with the books and manuscripts strewn over the
leaf of the writing-desk. He laid down on the mass the pile of foreign
magazines he had brought under his arm. "They gave me another address
first."

"Yes. I have chust gome here," said Lindau. "Idt is not very coy,
Neigh?"

"It might be gayer," March admitted, with a smile. "Still," he added,
soberly, "