of destroying the miserable bit of iron, but in the first place that was in itself difficult, and then the chattering lady at his side knew that he was in possession of a Runic inscription, probably Lombard.  She was widely connected and would certainly babble in the very city where his bitter rival Professor Anlaut had maintained that Lombard was West Germanic.  As Hauptmann noticed that the road had become deserted, that the dusk had increased, and that Frauelein Linda’s observations on the luckiness of the “find” were interminable, a homicidal fancy just grazed the border of his agitated consciousness.  But no, that would not do either; the scientific conscience forbade the destruction of any datum however embarrassing.  Destroy the spearhead he could not, and with a flash of intuition it came over him that it must simply be lost as promptly and hopelessly as possible.

But this too was by no means easy.  As they strolled down the road, ditch after ditch in the lower fields presented itself as apt for the purpose, but never the favourable moment.  In fact Frauelein Linda’s talk came back to the accursed runes with exasperating persistency.  They would confirm his theory.  She was happy in being present at this auspicious discovery.  It would be a cause wherefore she should not wholly be forgotten.  It was this sentimental hint that gave a reasonable hope of taking her mind off the runes, and the harassed philologer set himself resolutely to the task.  For her slight advances he found bolder responses, and still scanning the irrigating ditches closely for an especially oozy bottom, he expatiated on the loveliness of the afterglow and confirmed the recollection of last evening that Frauelein Linda’s dimpled hand might be an eminently pleasant thing to hold.  Thus gradually she was won from the Lombard runes to more personal interests, and as in the slow progress towards the station they neared a bridge, Hauptmann divined the spot where the East Germanic hypothesis lately in peril of death might receive an indefinite reprieve.

He found Linda, as he now called her, neither disinclined to sit on the parapet nor to receive the support of his arm.  Her chatter had dwindled to sighs and exclamations.  He felt the need of a competing sound as the chug of the spearhead in the ditch should announce the discomfiture of the West Germans.  But before committing the telltale runes to this ditch, Hauptmann scanned it carefully over Linda’s curly head, and considered thoughtfully its worthiness to receive so important a deposit.  The survey could not have been more reassuring.  Like so many of the main irrigating ditches that carry the water of Father Po and his tributaries to the lower fields, the sluggish stream consisted equally of water, weeds, and ooze.  No Lombard or other object held in that mixture was likely soon to be found.  There was a moment of tense silence and then a single plucking sound which various eavesdroppers might have located at the surface of the ditch or near Linda’s plump left cheek.  Neither guess would have been wrong, for if she sighed once more it was not for the vanishing Lombard runes.