s, about the deeds of knights and champions, and men of
huge stature; ballads which from time immemorial had been sung in the
North, and which some two centuries before the time of which I am
speaking had been collected by one Anders Vedel, who lived with a certain
Tycho Brahe, and assisted him in making observations upon the heavenly
bodies, at a place called Uranias Castle, on the little island of Hveen,
in the Cattegat.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

THE TWO INDIVIDUALS--THE LONG PIPE--THE GERMANS--WERTHER--THE FEMALE
QUAKER--SUICIDE--GIBBON--JESUS OF BETHLEHEM--FILL YOUR
GLASS--SHAKESPEARE--ENGLISH OF MINDEN--MELANCHOLY SWAYNE VONVED--ARE YOU
HAPPY?--IMPROVE YOURSELF IN GERMAN

It might be some six months after the events last recorded, that two
individuals were seated together in a certain room, in a certain street
of the old town which I have so frequently had occasion to mention in the
preceding pages; one of them was an elderly, and the other a very young
man, and they sat on either side of a fireplace, beside a table on which
were fruit and wine; the room was a small one, and in its furniture
exhibited nothing remarkable. Over the mantelpiece, however, hung a
small picture with naked figures in the foreground, and with much foliage
behind. It might not have struck every beholder, for it looked old and
smoke-dried; but a connoisseur, on inspecting it closely, would have
pronounced it to be a Judgment of Paris, and a masterpiece of the Flemish
school.

The forehead of the elder individual was high, and perhaps appeared more
so than it really was, from the hair being carefully brushed back, as if
for the purpose of displaying to the best advantage that part of the
cranium; his eyes were large and full, and of a light brown, and might
have been called heavy and dull, had they not been occasionally lighted
up by a sudden gleam--not so brilliant however as that which at every
inhalation shone from the bowl of the long clay pipe which he was
smoking, but which, from a certain sucking sound which about this time
began to be heard from the bottom, appeared to be giving notice that it
would soon require replenishment from a certain canister, which, together
with a lighted taper, stood upon the table beside him.

'You do not smoke?' said he, at length, laying down his pipe, and
directing his glance to his companion.

Now there was at least one thing singular connected with this last,
namely, the colour of his hai