Wenk had some accomplices among Karstens’ acquaintances. He begged them to make it widely known that he, the “country cousin,” was a man of fabulous wealth, which when once settled down, he intended to use to the full. He thought that thus he might entice the gambler from Schramm’s and others bent on plunder, that his wealth would be the candle to these night moths. At times he played carelessly for half an hour, adapting himself to the character of the game; then he would win considerable sums, only to lose them again next time. With all this he never lost sight of his own affairs or his neighbours’, and during the game his brain was working busily with a keenness which brought its own satisfaction. One evening during the second week in which he was pursuing this course, he came to a gaming-house in the centre of the city which, from the style of its habitués, who appeared more downright than in some of the other places, seemed to promise him something out of the common. There he saw an old gentleman sitting at the card-table, his attention being drawn to him on account of his horn spectacles. These were of unusual size. The old gentleman was addressed as Professor. When he took his cards in his hand, he removed his horn spectacles, exchanging them for eyeglasses of an uncommon shape. Then Wenk noticed that the spectacles now lying on the table were not the usual type of modern horn spectacles, but were of tortoiseshell, very artistically designed. The old gentleman slipped them into a large shagreen case, dotted over with green points. All his movements were very leisurely, so that Wenk had ample time for his observations. “Those are Chinese spectacles,” he thought to himself, recalling his own journey to China, which he had made before the war. The recollection surged up so powerfully that he uttered aloud what he had really only intended to say to himself. The Professor, who sat opposite him, nodded to him and said in a firm voice, which he had not expected to hear from so aged a mouth, “They are from Tsi-nan-fu!” He repeated the name, stressing it and separating the syllables, “Tsi-nan-fu.” It was as if the name had a rhythm and recollection behind it which affected him strongly, and which he enjoyed in the mere repetition of the syllables. He looked across at Wenk, as if his eyes in their large glasses were sending him a challenge. Wenk at once felt some strange connection with the old Professor. “Tsi-nan-fu,” said the harsh voice again, as if with special meaning; indeed, as if he wanted to hurl the three syllables at something, some invisible goal behind Wenk--to reach, three times over, an invisible point in the obscurity straight above his head beyond the circle of electric light.