“What are you bringing with you?” asked the Justice.

The Collector tapped gently and affectionately on all the swellings and protuberances of his various pockets, and said: 

“Oh, well, some very nice things—­all sorts of curiosities.  A battle-axe, a pair of thunderbolts, some heathen rings—­beautiful things all covered with green rust—­ash-urns, tear-bottles, three idols and a pair of valuable lamps.”  He struck the nape of his neck with the back of his hand and continued:  “And I also have here with me a perfectly preserved piece of bronze—­I had no other place to put it, so I tied it fast here on my back under my coat.  Well, it will probably not look amiss, once it is all cleaned up and given its proper place.”

The peasants displayed some curiosity to see a few of the articles, but old Schmitz declared himself unable to satisfy it, because the antiquities were so carefully packed and put away with such ingenious use of every bit of space that it would be difficult, if it were once taken out, to get the entire load back in again.  The Justice said something into the servant’s ear, and the latter went into the house.  In the meanwhile the Collector told in detail all about the places where he had come across the various acquisitions; then he moved his chair nearer to his host and said confidentially: 

“But what is by far the most important discovery of this trip—­I have now really found the actual place where Hermann defeated Varus!”

“You don’t mean it?” replied the Justice, pushing his cap back and forth.

“They have all been on the wrong track—­Clostermeier, Schmid, and whatever the names of the other people may be who have written about it!” cried the Collector ardently.  “They have always thought that Varus withdrew in the direction of Aliso—­the exact situation of which no man has ever discovered—­well, anyway, in a northerly direction, and in accordance with that theory the battle is supposed to have taken place between the sources of the Lippe and the Ems, near Detmold, Lippspring, Paderborn, and God knows where else!”

The Justice said:  “I think that Varus had to try with all his might to reach the Rhine, and that he could have done only by gaining the open country.  The battle is said to have lasted three days, and in that length of time you can march a good distance.  Hence I am rather of the opinion that the attack in the mountains which surround our plain did not take place very far from here.”

“Wrong, wrong, Justice!” cried the Collector.  “Here below everything was occupied and blocked up by the Cherusci, Catti, and Sigambri.  No the battle was much farther south, near the region of the Ruhr, not far from Arnsberg.  Varus had to push his way through the mountains, he had no egress anywhere, and his mind was bent on reaching the middle Rhine, whither the road leads diagonally across Sauerland.  That is what I have always thought, and now I have