Page:German Classics of The 19h and 20th C. Vol.19.djvu/307

 policeman, whose gloved right hand rested on a curiously bescribbled piece of paper that lay before him on the desk, and whose honest soldier-face looked at Tonio Kröger as if he expected that the latter must sink into the ground at sight of him.

Tonio Kröger looked from one to the other and applied himself to waiting.

"You come from Munich?" asked the policeman at last with a good-natured and ponderous voice.

Tonio Kroger assented.

"You are traveling to Copenhagen?"

"Yes, I am on the way to a Danish seashore resort."

"Seashore?—Well, you must show your papers," said the policeman, uttering the last word with particular satisfaction.

"Papers &hellip;" He had no papers. He drew out his pocketbook and looked into it; but besides some bills there was nothing in it but the proof-sheets of a story, which he had intended to correct at his journey's end. He was not fond of dealings with officials and had never had a passport filled out &hellip;

"I am sorry," he said, "but I have no papers with me."

"Oh," said the policeman &hellip; "None at all?—What is your name?"

Tonio Kröger answered him.

"Is that true?" said the policeman, straightening up and suddenly opening his nostrils as far as he could &hellip;

"Quite true," answered Tonio Kröger.

"And what are you?"

Tonio Kroger swallowed and named his calling with firm voice.—Mr. Seehaase raised his head and looked curiously up into his face.

"Hm," said the policeman. "And you claim not to be identical with an individial named—" He said "individial" and then spelled from the curiously bescribbled piece of paper a most puzzling and romantic name, which seemed to have been freakishly composed of the sounds of