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.
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