"That's taking fame by the forelock, indeed! Then by what name must I ask for you next time? For I'm not to be shaken off." "Lancelot." "Lancelot what?" "Only Lancelot! Mr. Lancelot." "Why, that's like your Mary Ann!" "So it is!" he laughed, more bitterly than cordially; "it never struck me before. Yes, we are a pair." "How did you stumble on this place?" "I didn't stumble. Deliberate, intelligent selection. You see, it's the next best thing to Piccadilly. You just cross Waterloo Bridge, and there you are at the centre, five minutes from all the clubs. The natives have not yet risen to the idea." "You mean the rent," laughed Peter. "You're as canny and careful as a Scotch professor. I think it's simply grand the way you've beaten out those shillings, in defiance of your natural instincts. I should have melted them years ago. I believe you _have_ got some musical genius, after all." "You overrate my abilities," said Lancelot, with the whimsical expression that sometimes flashed across his face even in his most unamiable moments. "You must deduct the Thalers I made in exhibitions. As for living in cheap lodgings, I am not at all certain it's an economy, for every now and again it occurs to you that you are saving an awful lot, and you take a hansom on the strength of it." "Well, I haven't torn up that cheque yet----" "Peter!" said Lancelot, his flash of gaiety dying away, "I tell you these things as a friend, not as a beggar. If you look upon me as the second, I cease to be the first." "But, man, I owe you the money; and if it will enable you to hold out a little longer--why, in heaven's name, shouldn't you----?" "You don't owe me the money at all; I made no bargain with you; I am not a money-lender." "_Pack dich zum Henker_!" growled Peter, with a comical grimace. "_Was fuer_ a casuist! What a swindler you'd make! I wonder you have the face to deny the debt. Well, and how did you leave Frau Sauer-Kraut?" he said, deeming it prudent to sheer off the subject. "Fat as a Christmas turkey." "Of a German sausage. The extraordinary things that woman stuffed herself with. Chunks of fat, stewed apples, Kartoffel salad--all mixed up in one plate, as in a dustbin." "Don't! You make my gorge rise. _Ach Himmel_! to think that this nation should be musical! O Music, heavenly maid, how much garlic I have endured for thy sake!" "Ha! ha! ha!" laughed Peter, putting down his whisky that he might throw himself freely back in the easy-chair and roar. "Oh that garlic!" he said, panting. "No wonder they smoked so much in Leipsic. Even so they couldn't keep the reek out of the staircases. Still, it's a great country is Germany. Our house does a tremendous business in German patents." "A great country? A land of barbarians rather. How can a people be civilised that eats jam with its meat?"