He stopped.  No one knew what poetry had been to him in his sickly existence—­the one supreme interest, the one thing he really cared to live for.

Fritzing now loved him with all his heart. “Ach Gott, ja,” he ejaculated, clapping him on the shoulder, “the poets—­ja, ja—­’Blessings be with them and eternal praise,’ what?  Young man,” he added enthusiastically, “I could wish that you had been my son.  I could indeed.”  And as he said it Robin Morrison coming down the street and seeing the two together and the expression on Tussie’s face instantly knew that Tussie had met the niece.

“Hullo, Tuss,” he called across, hurrying past, for it would rather upset his umbrella plan to be stopped and have to talk to the man Neumann thus prematurely.  But Tussie neither saw nor heard him, and “By Jove, hasn’t he just seen the niece though,” said Robin to himself, his eyes dancing as he strode nimbly along on long and bird-like legs.  The conviction seized him that when he and his umbrella should descend upon Baker’s that afternoon Tussie would either be there already or would come in immediately afterwards.  “Who would have thought old Fuss would be so enterprising?” he wondered, thinking of the extreme cordiality of Fritzing’s face.  “He’s given them those cottages, I’ll swear.”

So Fritzing went to Minehead.  I will not follow his painful footsteps as they ranged about that dreary place, nor will I dwell upon his purchases, which resolved themselves at last, after an infinite and soul-killing amount of walking and bewilderment, into a sofa, a revolving bookstand, and two beds.  He forgot a bed for Annalise because he forgot Annalise; and he didn’t buy things like sheets because he forgot that beds want them.  On the other hand he spent quite two hours in a delightful second-hand bookshop on his way to the place where you buy crockery, and then forgot the crockery.  He did, reminded and directed by Mr. Vickerton, the postmistress’s son, get to a paperhanger’s and order him and his men to come out in shoals to Symford the next morning at daybreak, making the paperhanger vow, who had never seen them, that the cottages should be done by nightfall.  Then, happening to come to the seashore, he stood for a moment refreshing his nostrils with saltness, for he was desperately worn out, and what he did after that heaven knows.  Anyhow young Vickerton found him hours afterwards walking up and down the shingle in the dark, waving his arms about and crying—­

                “O, qui me gelidis convallibus Haemi
     Sistat et ingenti ramorum protegat umbra!”

“Talking German out loud to himself,” said young Vickerton to his mother that night; and it is possible that he had been doing it all the time.