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A few Sundays later I was sitting in the little tea-arbor of Rutli's nursery, peacefully smoking with him. Presently he took his long china-bowled pipe from his mouth, and, looking at me blandly over his yellow mustache, said: "You vonts sometimes to go in dot house, eh?" I said, "Decidedly." "Mit a revolver, and keep dot house dose men out?" "Yes!" "Vell! I put you in dot house today!" "Sunday?"
Even this modest sanctum was not entirely the major's own, as was shown by the presence of a ruddy-faced man with a long, tawny beard, who sat on one side of the empty fire-place, puffing at a great china-bowled pipe, and comporting himself with an ease which showed that he was no casual visitor.
And every other man, regardless of his breed, held a cheap cigar between his front teeth; but the wagon drivers and many of the cavalrymen smoked pipes the long-stemmed, china-bowled pipe, which the German loves. The column moved beneath a smoke-wreath of its own making. The thing, however, which struck one most forcibly was the absolute completeness, the perfect uniformity, of the whole scheme.
"If I had ever dreamed the trouble would assume such serious proportions, the last thing I would have done would have been to allow the professor or his young charges to journey to the Haunted Mesa," continued the mine owner. Geisler, a rotund German, with a wealth of flaxen hair and moustache, puffed at his china-bowled pipe before replying.
"I like the way he faced the lot of us." So they went on down the street, discussing the new student. Otto, no whit daunted by his adventure, shortly after returned to his room. He lighted a big china-bowled pipe, and was smoking and reading when the messenger from the boys he had challenged came to see him.
China-bowled pipe in hand, the sergeant lumbered towards him. "You see, he did it," he said. "Did it at once and got it over. Just hitched his belt to the window-bars and swung himself off. You can't stop 'em nowadays." "Take the blanket off," ordered Jovannic.
The major stowed away the first in the pocket-book and the latter in his trouser pockets. Then he swaggered out with a great increase of pomposity and importance, and ordered his cabman to drive to Kennedy Place. Von Baumser was sitting in the major's campaigning chair, smoking his china-bowled pipe and gazing dreamily at the long blue wreaths.
He was coatless in the heat, and smoked a china-bowled German pipe like a man whose work is done and whose ease is earned; yet in his face and manner there was a trace of perturbation, an irritation of nervousness. "Oh!" he said, and spoke his own name. "Civil-doctor Fallwitz. I've been expecting somebody. You'd better come inside, hadn't you?"
As he saw the engine, with its load of friendly faces, he broke into a cheer, and ran toward the track side. "Hoch! Hoch! Hoch!" he yelled, waving his china-bowled pipe about his head. "Diss iss der bestest thing I've seen since I had idt der Cherman measles, alretty yet."
You see women plowing; women hoeing; women carrying incredibly huge bundles of fagots and fodder on their heads; women hauling heavy carts, sometimes with a straining, panting dog for a teammate, sometimes unaccompanied except by a stalwart father or husband, or brother or son, who, puffing a china-bowled pipe, walks alongside to see that the poor human draft-animals do not shirk or balk, or shy over the traces.