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But Carl did more than tolerate me. He gave me all the friendship of his simple heart. Without being expansive for he was a Hanoverian he told me all about himself, his thoughts and his aims, an open-hearted ambition and a very Germanic contentment with a world which contained beer and music. Then at last he told me all about his father, General von Mendebach, and Lisa.
Met that friend of yours, Carl von Mendebach, yesterday, but he didn't seem to see me." "Yes," I answered. "It is possible he did not know you. You have never been introduced." "No," he answered dubiously. "Shouldn't think that would matter in an out-of-the-way place like this." "It may seem out of the way to you," I said, without looking up from my book.
I cannot exactly say why Carl von Mendebach and I became close friends; but I do not think that Lisa von Mendebach had anything to do with it. I was never in love with Lisa, although I admired her intensely, and I never see a blue-eyed, fair-haired girl to this day without thinking of Lischen. But I was not in love with her. I was never good-looking.
"Golossa-a-l," muttered Von Mendebach, as we went away hurriedly together. The next morning Carl sent an English-speaking student with a challenge to Andrew Smallie. I wrote a note to my compatriot, telling him that although it was not our habit in England, he would do well to accept the challenge or to leave Gottingen at once. Carl stood over me while I wrote the letter.
The fresh pink of his cheek like the complexion of a healthy girl never faded for a moment. "When I've done with him," cried Smallie, "I'll fight you." We placed our men. The German soldier gave the word. Carl von Mendebach went down heavily. He was still smiling with a strange surprise on his simple face. "Little man," he said, "he has hit me."
"But it does not do so to the people who live here." "D -d slow lot, I call them," he muttered. He lighted a cigar and stood looking at me for some time and then he went away. It was about this time that Carl von Mendebach fought his first student duel, and he was kind enough to ask me to be his surgeon.
The General hustled Lisa away, muttering oaths beneath his great white moustache. When Andrew Smallie picked himself up, Carl von Mendebach was standing over him. "Tell him," said Carl in German, "that that was my sister." I told Smallie. Then Carl von Mendebach slowly drew off his fur glove and boxed Smallie heavily on the ear so that he rolled over sideways.
Yes, but it is hard ach Gott! devilish hard." There was a restrained shyness about the man which I liked. Shy men are so rare. And, although he could have cleared the Brauerei Garden in five minutes, there was no bluster about this Teutonic Hercules. His loud, good-natured laugh was perhaps the most striking characteristic of Carl von Mendebach.
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