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After dinner, when everyone had gone into the drawing-room, and Dr Leander came to pay his compliments to the new guests in particular, Herr Klöterjahn's wife inquired about the person who had sat opposite them.

"What is the gentleman's name?" she asked. "Spinelli? I did not catch the name."

"Spinell, not Spinelli, Madam. No, he is not an Italian, but was merely born in Lemberg, so faras I know . . ."

"And did you say that he was a writer? Or just what?" Herr Klöterjahn asked. He had his hands deep in the pockets of his comfortable English trousers, leaned one ear to the doctor, and as is the case with a good many people, opened his mouth to listen.

"Indeed, I don't just know . . . he writes . . ." Dr Leander answered. "He has, I believe, published a book, a kind of novel, but I really don't know anything . . ."

This repeated "Don't know" indicated that Dr Leander didn't take much stock in the writer, and declined all responsibility for him.

"But that is certainly very interesting!" Herr Klöterjahn's wife put in. She had never before seen an author face to face.

"Oh, yes," Dr Leander answered accommodatingly. "He is supposed to have a certain amount of reputation . . ." Whereupon nothing more was said about the author.

But a little later, after the new guests had retired and Dr Leander was about to leave the drawing-room, Herr Spinell intercepted him and made inquiries on his part also.

"What is the name of these two?" he asked. "Of course, I didn't quite catch it."

"Klöterjahn," Dr Leander answered, and went on his way.

"What is the man's name?"

"Their name is Klöterjahn!" and Dr Leander was gone. He took no stock at all in this author.

Had we not reached the place where Herr Klöterjahn had gone back home? Indeed, he was again on the Baltic, with his business and his child, this inconsiderate and lively little creature which had cost his mother so many pains and a slight defect in the trachea. But as for her, the young wife, she stayed on in Einfried, and the