“Let us go, then, sir,” answered the pedestrian.  “I ask no better than to be agreeable to you.”

We walked toward the carriage, which was still waiting on the highroad, and I presented to my travelling companion the new recruit whom I had just gained.  The usual greetings were exchanged, and the dialogue began in the purest Saxon.  Though I did not understand a word that was said, it was easy for me to see, by the rapidity of the questions and the length of the answers, that the conversation was most interesting.  At last, at the end of half an hours growing desirous of knowing to what point they had come, I said, “Well?”

“Well,” answered my interpreter, “you are in luck’s way, and you could not have asked a better person.”

“The gentleman knew Sand, then?”

“The gentleman is the governor of the prison in which Sand was confined.”

“Indeed?”

“For nine months—­that is to say, from the day he left the hospital—­ this gentleman saw him every day.”

“Excellent!”

“But that is not all:  this gentleman was with him in the carriage that took him to execution; this gentleman was with him on the scaffold; there’s only one portrait of Sand in all Mannheim, and this gentleman has it.”

I was devouring every word; a mental alchemist, I was opening my crucible and finding gold in it.

“Just ask,” I resumed eagerly, “whether the gentleman will allow us to take down in writing the particulars that he can give me.”

My interpreter put another question, then, turning towards me, said, “Granted.”

Mr. G——­got into the carriage with us, and instead of going on to Heidelberg, we returned to Mannheim, and alighted at the prison.

Mr. G—–­did not once depart from the ready kindness that he had shown.  In the most obliging manner, patient over the minutest trifles, and remembering most happily, he went over every circumstance, putting himself at my disposal like a professional guide.  At last, when every particular about Sand had been sucked dry, I began to ask him about the manner in which executions were performed.  “As to that,” said he, “I can offer you an introduction to someone at Heidelberg who can give you all the information you can wish for upon the subject.”

I accepted gratefully, and as I was taking leave of Mr. G——­, after thanking him a thousand times, he handed me the offered letter.  It bore this superscription:  “To Herr-doctor Widemann, No.  III High Street, Heidelberg.”

I turned to Mr. G——­once more.

“Is he, by chance, a relation of the man who executed Sand?” I asked.

“He is his son, and was standing by when the head fell.”.

“What is his calling, then?”

“The same as that of his father, whom he succeeded.”

“But you call him ’doctor’?”

“Certainly; with us, executioners have that title.”

“But, then, doctors of what?”