affirmative answer, continued, “we are then colleagues. Are you satisfied with your results here?”
“Oh, things might be better. There is too much competition.”
“Cotton?”
“No. Bronze goods and silk. Have brought some marvellous gold ornaments from Delhi.”
“Then probably your cigarette-case comes from Delhi also?” The oval eyes of the other shot over him in an inquiring glance.
“My cigarette-case? No—are you travelling perhaps in skins, colleague? Do you deal in Cashmir goats?”
“I have everything. My house trades in everything.”
“You do not come from Calcutta?”
“No! not from Calcutta.”
“Bad weather down there. All my leather is spoilt.”
“Is it so damp there?”
“Vapour bath, I tell you; a real vapour bath!”
Heideck had long since made up his mind that he had a Russian before him. But, in order to be quite on the safe side, he made a jocular remark in Russian. His new acquaintance looked up astonished.
“You speak Russian, sir?”
“A little.”
“But you are no Russian?”
“No; I am a German, who, during a temporary stay in Russia, have picked up a little knowledge of languages. We merchants go about a lot.”
The gentleman who, according to his statement, travelled in bronze and silk was evidently delighted to hear in a place where he had least expected it the familiar tones of his mother tongue, and Heideck did his utmost, with almost an excess of zeal, to keep him in good humour. He called his servant and bade him get some hot water.
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