"Do you lock your door at night when travelling?" asked Obenreizer,
standing warming his hands by the wood fire in Vendale's chamber, before
going to his own.
"Not I. I sleep too soundly."
"You are so sound a sleeper?" he retorted, with an admiring look. "What
a blessing!"
"Anything but a blessing to the rest of the house," rejoined Vendale, "if
I had to be knocked up in the morning from the outside of my bedroom
door."
"I, too," said Obenreizer, "leave open my room. But let me advise you,
as a Swiss who knows: always, when you travel in my country, put your
papers--and, of course, your money--under your pillow. Always the same
place."
"You are not complimentary to your countrymen," laughed Vendale.
"My countrymen," said Obenreizer, with that light touch of his friend's
elbows by way of Good-Night and benediction, "I suppose are like the
majority of men. And the majority of men will take what they can get.
Adieu! At four in the morning."
"Adieu! At four."
Left to himself, Vendale raked the logs together, sprinkled over them the
white wood-ashes lying on the hearth, and sat down to compose his
thoughts. But they still ran high on their latest theme, and the running
of the river tended to agitate rather than to quiet them. As he sat
thinking, what little disposition he had had to sleep departed. He felt
it hopeless to lie down yet, and sat dressed by the fire. Marguerite,
Wilding, Obenreizer, the business he was then upon, and a thousand hopes
and doubts that had nothing to do with it, occupied his mind at once.
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