Then a long knife on the table attracted his attention. He took it up, mimicked the pose of a grand tragedian, opened his mouth and swallowed the knife, as if twelve-inch blades were his favourite repast. All at once the knife lay upon the table again, only to vanish in the coat-sleeve of Herr von Rader and appear again rather abruptly out of his left trousers pocket. "I'm an artist," Herr Rader, alias von Rader, alias Müller said with a condescending smile. "A good one, too. Strictly first class. Why, these monkeys of Frenchmen don't know nothing about art! Would they appreciate a true artist? Not a bit of it. Boys, since I hopped over the frontier and made long nose at the German cop I left on the other side with a long face, I haven't had much to eat. Remarkably less than was good for my constitution. So Herr von Rader went to the dogs--to the Foreign Legion, I meant to say. What's the difference--if they don't treat me with proper respect, I'll be compelled to leave them again. On French leave! Scoot, skin out, bunk it--see?" Then Herr von Rader fished a number of mysterious little boxes out of innumerable pockets, inspected them carefully, turned round to mask his artistic preparations, turned to us again--and his wide-opened satyr-mouth emitted a sheet of flame! Little Schneider (he was very young) stared at the phenomenon with startled eyes. "Grand, ain't it?" said Herr von Rader quietly. "I've a notion that this coon isn't going to waste his resources on French Africa. Oh no! Some fine day I'll give the niggers of Central Africa a treat. I'll go partners with some big chief and do the conjuring part of the business. Heap big medicine! There's only one thing worrying me. How about drinking arrangements? Palm-wine, ain't it? Boys, if only they have such a thing as beer and kümmel down there!--Say, old fellow (he turned to me) what do you think about this French absinthe?" I mumbled something. "Awfully weak stuff!" said Herr von Rader sorrowfully. "No d--d good!" If the comical fellow had known that, with his drollery and his fantastic yarns, he was helping me to battle with my despair, I suppose he would have been very much astonished.... There was a good deal of story-telling: about the hunger and the misery of such "artistes" of the road; about the little tricks and "petty larcenies," by means of which the ever-hungry and ever-thirsty Herr von Rader had managed to eat occasionally, at least, on his wanderings over the roads of many countries; about drinking and things unspeakable. Most of the stories, however, told of hunger only, plain and simple hunger.