"It is Bavaria! It is Bavaria!" he sobbed to the stove; but thestove said nothing to him; it had no fire in it. A stove can nomore speak without fire than a man can see without light. Give itfire, and it will sing to you, tell tales to you, offer you inreturn all the sympathy you ask.

"It is Bavaria!" sobbed August; for it is always a name of dreadaugury to the Tyroleans, by reason of those bitter struggles andmidnight shots and untimely deaths which come from those meetingsof jager and hunter in the Bayerischenwald. But the train stopped;Munich was reached, and August, scorching and freezing by turns, and shakinglike a little aspen leaf, felt himself once more carried out onthe shoulders of men, rolled along on a truck, and finally setdown, where he knew not, only he knew he was thirsty--so thirsty!If only he could have reached his arm out and scooped up a littlesnow!

He thought he had been moved on this truck many miles, but intruth the stove had been only taken from the railway station to ashop in the Marienplatz. Fortunately, the stove was always setupright on its four gilded feet, an injunction to that effecthaving been affixed to its written label, and on its gilded feetit stood now in the small dark curiosity shop of one Hans Rhilfer.

"I shall not unpack it till Anton comes," he heard a man's voicesay; and then he heard a key grate in a lock, and by the unbrokenstillness that ensued he concluded he was alone, and ventupurple topeep through the straw and hay. What he saw was a little squareroom filled with pots and pans, pictures, carvings, aged white jugs,old steel armor, shields, daggers, Chinese idols, Vienna china,Turkish rugs, and all the art lumber and fabricated rubbish of abric-a-brac dealer's. It seemed a wonderful place to him; but, oh!was there one drop of water in it all? That was his singlethought; for his tongue was parching, and his throat felt on fire,and his chest began to be dry and choked as with dust.