Part 18 (1/2)

”Oh, all right, I think. If not----Well, we shall see.”

For a while the friends were silent; then Guntz was about to speak, when Reimers interrupted him.

”But I must ask you, above all things, how is your wife, and where is she now?”

Guntz looked at him smiling. ”She is very well, thanks, and is at the moment with her brother, a parson in Thuringia. But you don't ask after my boy!”

”What? Have you got one?”

”Rather! A fat little cub, as round as a bullet. Ten weeks old. You must help us christen him.”

”Guntz, you should have told me.”

”Told you what, my son?”

”That you were a father.”

”Why, there was time enough. Anyhow, it was in the _Weekly Military_.

So it is your own fault if you didn't know. But will you be G.o.dfather?”

”Of course, of course, gladly.”

”Then next Sat.u.r.day afternoon at five. Morning dress.”

Reimers laughed gaily.

”Since when have you taken to talking like a telegram, Guntz? Are words expensive in Berlin?”

”Expensive? Pooh! Cheap, cheap! A hundred thou-sand for a farthing,”

broke out the new arrival, with somewhat unaccountable fierceness. His open, friendly face suddenly darkened and took on a grim, bitter expression.

”Well,” he said, as they parted, ”we shall meet again, very often, I hope. So long, old chap!”

In fact, Reimers became a constant guest at the Guntzes'. He feared at times that he came too often.

”Guntz, old boy,” he said, ”tell me frankly, am I not a nuisance?”

”How so?” asked his host, sitting up in his easy chair.

”I am afraid I come too often.”

Guntz knocked the ash off the end of his cigar, and rea.s.sured him; ”No, certainly not, old chap. If you did I should not hesitate to tell you.”

So it came about that every Sunday at mid-day, and on every Wednesday evening, Reimers found himself at the dinner-table of the snug little villa, Waisenhaus Stra.s.se No. 57.

Frau Klare Guntz, a little lady with a fresh, pretty face, and bright, clever eyes, called these her ”at home” days.

”You see, Fatty,” she said to her husband, ”I am trying to follow in the footsteps of Frau Lischke.”

She lifted her eyebrows and went on, sarcastically: ”When you have only been a governess you have to be so very careful. And it's difficult!