Page:Karl Gjellerup - Minna, A novel - 1913.djvu/39



Later on he took the opportunity to sing some ditties from the years of the war. For, when I walked quickly uphill and left him behind, he always blurted out the Saxonian mocking verse from 1813—

But if I loitered, he said—

That this souvenir from '64, and especially the name "Hannemann," could not be pleasing to a Danish ear, the thick-skinned German did not take into consideration; but at the same time he looked so good-natured that, in spite of some patriotic struggles, I could not be offended with him. When we were resting he usually related tales of his student life or of the war, which latter, however, were mostly of a rather peaceful order.

"Yes, there you are perfectly right, it is an excellent tobacco," he said, when he was lighting his pipe after supper. "What do you think of the strange coincidence which happened to me in connection with this tobacco? But in those days it was of a better quality than at present; it was famous throughout almost the whole of Germany—the Altstädter-Ziegel tobacco. Well, it was in those days, I think I have already told you, that I was in the Lazaretto at Flensburg after having received a bullet in my shoulder,