On the first morning, at breakfast, the host made his guest acquainted with his circle of tablemates. Afterwards James met the Hofrat, who came paddling through the dining-room, with the black and pale assistant in his wake, strewing on all sides his regular rhetorical question: “Slept well?” He met the Hofrat, and from his lips heard that not only had it been a clipper of an idea to come on a visit to his marooned cousin, but that he served his own interest even better in so coming, for that he was totally anaemic was plain to any eye. He, Tienappel, anaemic?⁠—“Ray‑ther so,” said Behrens, and putting up a forefinger pulled down the skin under James’s eye. “Ray‑ther so!” he reiterated. The avuncular guest would be turning a clever trick to stretch himself out on his balcony for a few weeks and do his best to emulate the good example set him by his nephew. In his condition he could do nothing sharper than to act as though he had a slight case of tuberculosis pulmonum