Gard sank back on the cushions and closed his eyes. He was somewhat fatigued from having climbed the Wartburg whose castle, famed in the history of Luther, lay asleep there like a long and oddly shaped beetle. He soon fell into a doze. When he became conscious again, his companion's countenance was buried as before in the paper. Underneath it, gray trousers and large boots protruded in Kirtley's direction as if to ward off any familiar approach. That editorial page must be extensive and absorbing, Kirtley commented to himself as he whiffed the refreshing breeze that came in his window from Hesse close by on the west. In a delicious half-dreaminess he thought the stranger turned the journal and that a reddish, be-whiskered visage, with a flat, wide-lobed nose, popped into view for a second. The motionless reading, nevertheless, continued for the remainder of the trip. To the sweet July zephyr and the snug landscapes flitting by, the soldier paid no heed. How German this was!--Kirtley mused. The Teutons are a wintry race and often take their summer joys in a hard, hyperborean fashion. He could not but admire this example of physical constraint. The iron rigors of Prussian drill had made the best army in the world. Or perhaps this was some queer, abnormal chap. Gard remembered fragments of stories he had heard of comic or tragic happenings in the separated, locked compartments of continental trains. But the tales were too vague in his mind to pique any anxiety. He roused himself and took up his German newspaper. Muffled war scares. Always war scares more or less in evidence. How dull the Teuton journals would be without them! Dog days were coming and brains were no doubt effervescing. The forty-eight hours in the rich old capital on the Main were full and Kirtley had almost forgotten his peculiar fellow traveler from Eisenach. What was his amazement, after his guard had punched his transportation and closed him into his compartment in the train for Heidelberg, to find the same individual seated alone again in the corner, engrossed in his voluminous and stationary paper! This began to be disturbing. Gard was not more brave than the average mortal, but fear had not really been born into his bones. Was this some weird affair? Was it a spy at work, combining German earnestness with German farcicalness? The ludicrous extremes of Jim Deming's experience flashed over Kirtley's mind. But he felt as full confidence in his innocence as had Jim, and he had not given a Cinderella party. It was a short run to the celebrated university town on the Neckar through ancient Hesse. What would Gard do? This was a nonsensical situation. He decided to crack it open, find out what it was all about. He summoned his best German and formally addressed a casual remark to the stranger. No answer. He did not hear.