soldiers and civilists, especially. It was Imre von N.... himself who gave me this information, or hint; though not any clear explanation of its need. But he and I not only kept out of the most frequented haunts of social and military Szent-Istvánhely thenceforth, but spoke (on occasion) to others of my having come to the place especially to be with Imre, again,—«for the first time in three years», since we had become «acquainted with each other down in Sarajevo, one morning»—during a visit to the famous Husruf-Beg Mosque there! This easy fabrication was sufficient. Nobody questioned it. As a fact, Imre and I, when comparing notes one afternoon had found out that really we had been in Sarajevo at the exact date mentioned. «The lie that is half a truth is ever» .... the safest of lies, as well as the convenientest one.
Now of what did two men thus insistent on one another's companionship, one of them some twenty-five years of age, the other past thirty, neither of them vapourous with the vague hentusiasms of first manhood, nor fluent with
