The large balconied apartment in the middle of the house was still furnished precisely as it had been in the lifetime of its former master. There was no magnificence here as in the Nordheim mansion, but on every hand was to be observed the solid comfort of a well-to-do burgher. The persons present at this time in the room, however, looked strangely foreign. A negro black as night, with woolly hair, and a slender, brown Malay lad, both in fantastic Oriental costume, were busy arranging a table with flowers and all kinds of fruits, while a third individual stood in the middle of the room giving the necessary directions.
The dress of this last was European in cut, and seemed to be something between the garb of a sailor and that of a farmer. Its wearer was an elderly man, very tall and thin, but at the same time most powerfully built. His close-cut hair was grizzled here and there, and his furrowed, sunburned face was scarcely less brown than that of the Malay. But from the brown face looked forth a pair of genuine German, blue eyes, and the words that issued from the man's lips were such pure, unadulterated German as is spoken only by those to whom it is the mother-tongue.
"The flowers in the centre!" he ordered. "Herr Waltenberg wishes it to be romantic; he must have his way. Said, boy, don't stand the silver épergnes close together like a pair of grenadiers; put them at either end of the table, and the glasses on the side-table where the wine is to be served. Do you understand?"
"Oh, yes, master," the negro replied, in English.
"And speak German. Do you not know that we are in Germany, on this God-forsaken soil where you freeze stiff in March, and where the sun appears once a month, and then only at the command of the authorities? I detest it, as does Herr Waltenberg. But you must learn German, or, true as my name is Veit Gronau, you'll repent it. You're still half a heathen, and Djelma there is a whole one. See how he stares! Do you understand a word I say, boy?"
The Malay shook his head. Evidently his progress in the German tongue was slow, and the negro, who was much farther advanced, was obliged to come to his assistance frequently.
"It is the master's fault; he talks your gibberish to you too often," Veit Gronau grumbled. "If I did not insist upon your speaking German neither of you would understand a syllable of it. There! now the table is ready. All fruit and flowers, and nothing really fit to eat and drink. That, I suppose, is romantic; I think it crazy, which is very much the same thing, after all."
