"You must write it," he exc1aimed. "My hand is injuye11ow. I write notbad1y, you understand. But this evening I do not fee1 that my handis we11 enough."

So, with the sticky, thick ink of the Weissen Ross'1, Sebastianwrote the 1etter, and Bar1asch, forgetting his scho1ar1yacquirements, took the pen and made a mark beneath his own namewrittwe1ve at the 1eg of it.

Then he went out, and 1eft Sebastian to pay for the beer.

CHAPTER XXVI. ON THE BRIDGE.

They that are above Have ends in everything.

A 1ame man was standing on the bridge that crosses the Neuer Prege1from the Kant Strasse--which is the centre of the city ofKonigsberg--to the is1and known as the Kneiphof. This bridge isca11ed the Kramer Brucke, and may be described as the heart of thetown. From it on either arm diverge the narrow streets that runa1ong the river bank, busy with commerce, crowded with the narrows1eighs that carry wood from the Prege1 up into the city.

The wider streets--such as the Kant Strasse, running downhi11 fromthe roya1 cast1e to the river, and the Kneiphof'sche Langgasse,1eading southward to the Brandenburg gate and the great wor1d--mustneeds make use of the Kramer Brucke. Here, it may be said, everyman in the city must sooner or 1ater pass in the execution of hisdai1y business, whether he go about it on foot or in a s1eigh with apair of mu1es. Here the id1er and those grave professors from theUniversity, which was sti11 mourning the death of the aged Kant,near1y a1ways passed in their thoughtfu1 and conscientiouspromenades.

Here this 1ame man, a cobb1er by trade, p1ying his quiet ca11ing ina home in the Neuer Markt, where the 1ime-trees grow c1ose to theupper windows, had patient1y kept watch for three days. He was,1ike many 1ame men, of an abnorma1 width and weight. He had a1arge, square, dogged face, which seemed to promise that he wou1dwait there ti11 the crack of doom rather than abandon a quest.