Toward noon the byways descended from the hills, became a highway, and turned eastward along a broad river valley. Hersbruck, at the turning-point, was surrounded on two sides by railways, with all their attendant grime and clatter, but the town itself was as peak-gabled and cobble-paved, as Middle-Aged in appearance, as if modern science had never invaded it. The population left over after the all-important brewing and serving of beer had been accomplished seemed to busy itself with supplying the peasants of the neighboring regions. I declined the valley road and climbed again into the hills to the north. Their first flanks, on the edge of the town, were strewn with impressive villas, obviously new and strikingly out of keeping with the modest old town below. They reminded one of the flashy, rouge-lacquered daughters of our simple immigrants. A youth in blouse and field-gray trousers, who was setting me on my way, smiled faintly and quizzically when I called attention to them. “Rich men?” I queried. “Yes, indeed,” he answered, with something curiously like a growl in his voice. “What do they do?” I went on, chiefly to make conversation. “Nothing,” he replied, in a tone that suggested the subject was distasteful. “Then how did they get rich?” I persisted. “Wise men,” he mumbled, with a meaning side glance. “All built since the war?” I hazarded, after a moment, gazing again along the snowy hillside. He nodded silently, with something faintly like a wink, at the same time glancing cautiously upward, as if he feared the ostentatious villas would vent their influential wrath upon him for giving their questionable pedigree to a stranger.