“Of the war?” he asked again.

“Of three wars!” I answered, standing up straight that he might see the Iron Cross I wear under my dress-coat, which the Emperor set there.

“Name and regiment?” he said quickly, for he had learned the way of it, and was pleased that I called him Hauptmann.

“Jacob Oertler, formerly of the Berlin Husaren, and after of the Intelligence Department.”

“So,” he said, “you speak French, then?”

“Sir,” said I, “I was twenty years in France.  I was born in Elsass.  I was also in Paris during the siege.”

Thus we might have talked for long enough, but suddenly his face darkened and he lifted his eyes from the Cross.  He had remembered his message.

“Does the tall English Herr live here, who goes to Professor Mueller’s each day in the Anlage?  Is he at this time within?  I have a cartel for him.”

Then I told him that the English Herr was no Schlaeger-player, though like the lion for bravery in fighting, as my brother had been witness.

“But what is the cause of quarrel?” I asked.

“The cause,” he said, “is only that particular great donkey, Hellmuth.  He came swaggering to-night along the New Neckar-Bridge as full of beer as the Heidelberg tun is empty of it.  He met your Herr under the lamps where there were many students of the corps.  Now, Hellmuth is a beast of the Rhine corps, so he thought he might gain some cheap glory by pushing rudely against the tall Englander as he passed.

“‘Pardon!’ said the Englishman, lifting his hat, for he is a gentleman, and of his manner, when insulted, noble.  Hellmuth is but a Rhine brute—­though my cousin, for my sins.

“So Hellmuth went to the end of the Bridge, and, turning with his corps-brothers to back him, he pushed the second time against your Herr, and stepped back so that all might laugh as he took off his cap to mock the Englishman’s bow and curious way of saying ‘Pardon!’

“But the Englander took him momently by the collar, and by some art of the light hand turned him over his foot into the gutter, which ran brimming full of half-melted snow.  The light was bright, for, as I tell you, it was underneath the lamps at the bridge-end.  The moon also happened to come out from behind a wrack of cloud, and all the men on the bridge saw—­and the girls with them also—­so that you could hear the laughing at the Molkenkur, till the burghers put their red night-caps out of their windows to know what had happened to the wild Kerls of the cafes.”

“But surely that is no cause for a challenge, Excellenz?” said I.  “How can an officer of the Kaiser bring such a challenge?”

“Ach!” he said, shrugging his shoulders, “is not a fight a fight, cause or no cause?  Moreover, is not Hellmuth after all the son of my mother’s sister, though but a Rhineland donkey, and void of sense?”

So I showed him up to the room of the English Herr, and went away again, though not so far but that I could hear their voices.