Willy in the meantime had in his droll, lively way fully informed Frederick of the character and purpose of this extremely comfortable house.  It was leased by a group of German artists, whose main prop was a sculptor of twenty-eight by the name of Ritter.  Willy lauded Ritter as a genius.  He had entered upon a career in the New World most remarkable for a man of his age.  Among his patrons were the Astors, the Goulds, and the Vanderbilts; and he had received most of the orders for exterior sculpture work on the buildings of the Chicago Exposition.  Willy called Ritter “a devil of a fellow,” and praised him for his “smartness.”

In a corner of the dining-room, in the halls and on the stairway landings, were reproductions of Ritter’s works.  Willy extolled them to the skies; Frederick honestly admired them.  The large bas-relief in the corner of the dining-room represented a group of singing boys, for which Ritter, probably at the suggestion of his customer, a Vanderbilt or an Astor, had used the famous relief of Luca della Robbia as a model.  In style, nobility and freshness, his work surpassed anything then being done in Germany.

Another sculptor partaking of the benefits of the club-house was a friend of Ritter, who helped him with his work.  Like Ritter, Lobkowitz was a native Austrian.  The fourth member of the group was Franck, a painter from Silesia, an impecunious eccentric, upon whose talents his comrades placed an extremely high estimate.  It was Willy Snyders the kind-hearted who, soon after a chance meeting with his fellow-Silesian, dragged him from his wretched quarters, not without much coaxing, and transferred him to the club-house.

“Wait and see the way that lunatic Franck is going to behave,” said Willy in his peculiar voice, in which there was a blending of the guttural and nasal tones of American English with the Austrian German accent of his friends.  “He snaps like a mad dog.  He’s enough to make you split your sides laughing—­that is, if the perverse creature comes at all and doesn’t have dinner served in his room.”

As a matter of fact, Franck was the first to enter the dining-room.  Willy’s tongue kept wagging, while the eccentric merely shook hands limply with Frederick and said nothing.  Though the three were countrymen, Franck’s appearance—­like Willy, he was wearing evening dress—­added a touch of embarrassment where there had been perfect unconstraint; and though Willy had lent Frederick a suit, and a tailor had already been ordered, Frederick expressed regret at not being appropriately dressed.

“Yes, Ritter’s a great stickler for form,” Willy observed.  “Every evening we have to present the appearance of at least attaches to an embassy.”

Petronilla entered and explained in wordy Italian that the poor, dear, sweet little signorina had fallen asleep in bed and was breathing quietly and regularly.