He looked at me uneasily, as though expecting a reply. I made haste, of course, to question him, and from his disconnected and broken sentences, full of unnecessary parentheses, I succeeded in learning that at seven o’clock that morning an official of the province had “all of a sudden” called on him.

“ Pardon, j’ai oublié son nom. Il n’est pas du pays , but I think he came to the town with Lembke, quelque chose de bête et d’Allemand dans la physionomie. Il s’appelle Rosenthal. ”

“Wasn’t it Blum?”