"De stars, my gracious, just look at de stars," suddenly remarked in a ponderous sing-song a voice that seemed to come from inside a barrel. He knew the voice. It belonged to a reddish-blond, simply dressed man with reddened eyelids and a clammy look, as if he had just taken a bath. At supper in the cabin he had been Tonio Kröger's neighbor and with hesitant and modest motions he had taken unto himself astonishing quantities of lobster-omelette. Now he was leaning against the rail beside his new acquaintance and looking up at the sky, holding his chin with thumb and forefinger. Without doubt he was in one of those extraordinary and solemnly contemplative moods in which the barriers between men fall away, in which the heart opens even to strangers, and the mouth utters things which would otherwise close it in modesty ... "Look, sir, just look at de stars. Dere dey stand and twinkle, upon my word de whole sky is full of dem. And now let me ask you, when we look up and reflect dat many of dem are supposed to be a hundred times bigger dan de eart', how do we feel? We men have invented de telegraph and de telephone, and so many achievements of modern life, yes, dat we have. But when we look up dere, den we have to recognize and understand dat after all we're only vermin, miserable vermin and not'ing else--am I right or wrong, sir? Yes, we are vermin," he answered himself, and nodded up at the firmament, humble and crushed. Ouch ... no, he has no literature in him, thought Tonio Kröger. And forthwith something that he had recently been reading occurred to him, an article by a famous French author on cosmological and psychological philosophy; it had been very elegant chatter. He gave the young man something like an answer to his deep-felt remark, and they continued to talk, leaning over the rail and looking out into the restlessly illuminated, agitated evening. It turned out that the traveling companion was a young merchant from Hamburg, who was using his vacation for this pleasure trip ... "Go and take a little trip," he was saying, "to Copenhagen wit de _Dampfoot_, I tought, and so here I am, and so far it's very nice. But dose lobster-omelettes, you know, dat wasn't de ting, you'll see, for it's going to be a stormy night, de captain said so himself, and wit such an indigestible supper in your stomach dat's no joke ..." Tonio Kröger listened to all this complaisant folly with a secretly friendly feeling. "Yes," he said, "they eat far too much up here anyway. That makes them lazy and melancholy." "Melancholy?" repeated the young man, looking at him in consternation ... "I suppose you are a stranger here?" he suddenly inquired ... "Oh yes, I come from far away," answered Tonio Kröger with a vague and evasive gesture.