"
"He who signs cannot write at all."
"That writing," went on the cobbler, "is a passport in any German
state. He who carries a letter written in that hand can live and
travel free anywhere from here to the Rhine or the Danube."
"Then I am lucky in possessing a powerful friend," said D'Arragon,
"for I know who wrote this letter. I think I may say he is a friend
of mine."
"I am sure of it. I have already been told so," said the cobbler.
"Have you a lodging in Konigsberg? No? Then you can lodge in my
house."
Without awaiting a reply, which he seemed to consider a foregone
conclusion, he limped down the Kohl Markt towards the steps leading
to the river, which in winter is a thoroughfare.
"I live in the Neuer Markt," he said breathlessly, as he laboured
onwards. "I have waited for you three days on that bridge. Where
have you been all this time?"
"Avoiding the French," replied D'Arragon curtly. Respecting his own
affairs he was reticent, as commanders and other lonely men must
always be. They walked side by side on the dusty and trodden ice
without further speech. At the steps from the river to Neuer Markt,
D'Arragon gave the lame man his hand, and glanced a second time at
the fingers which clasped his own. They had not been born to toil,
but had had it thrust upon them.
They crossed the Neuer Markt together, and went into that house
where the linden grows so close as to obscure the windows.
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