Thus conversing of many things, sat the two friends under the linden-trees on the Rent Tower, till gradually the crowd disappeared from the garden, and the objects around them grew indistinct, in the fading twilight. Between them and the amber-colored western sky, the dense foliage of the trees looked heavy and hard, as if cast in bronze; and already the evening stars hung like silver lamps in the towering branches of that Tree of Life, brought more than two centuries ago from its primeval Paradise in America, to beautify the gardens of the Palatinate. "I take a mournful pleasure in gazing at that tree," said Flemming, as they rose to depart. "It stands there so straight and tall, with iron bandsaround its noble trunk and limbs, in silent majesty, or whispering only in its native tongue, and freighting the homeward wind with sighs! It reminds me of some captive monarch of a savage tribe, brought over the vast ocean for a show, and chained in the public market-place of the city, disdainfully silent, or breathing only in melancholy accents a prayer for his native forest, a longing to be free." "Magnificent!" cried the Baron. "I always experience something of the same feeling when I walk through a conservatory. The luxuriant plants of the tropics,--those illustrious exotics, with their gorgeous, flamingo-colored blossoms, and great, flapping leaves, like elephant's ears,--have a singular working upon my imagination; and remind me of a menagerie and wild-beasts kept in cages. But your illustration is finer;--indeed, a grand figure. Put it down for an epic poem." CHAPTER IV. A BEER-SCANDAL. On their way homeward, Flemming and the Baron passed through a narrow lane, in which was a well-known Studenten-Kneipe. At the door stood a young man, whom the Baron at once recognised as his friend Von Kleist. He was a student; and universally acknowledged, among his young acquaintance, as a "devilish handsome fellow"; notwithstanding a tremendous scar on his cheek, and a cream-colored mustache, as soft as the silk of Indian corn. In short he was a renowner, and a duellist. "What are you doing here, Von Kleist?" "Ah, my dear Baron! Is it you? Come in; come in. You shall see some sport. A Fox-Commerce is on foot, and a regular Beer-Scandal." "Shall we go in, Flemming?" "Certainly. I should like to see how these things are managed in Heidelberg. You are a Baron, and I am a stranger. It is of no consequence what you and I do, as the king's fool Angeli said to the poet Bautru, urging him to put on his hat at the royal dinner-table."