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surprise at her air of unmistakable triumph. She shut the door
    carefully behind her, put her bag down and took out of it half a cabbage, perfectly fresh, a wedge
    of cheese, a small piece of steak, a loaf, a twist of paper containing alleged coffee, and another
    containing several spoonfuls of brown sugar. “Wait,” she said. “That is not all.”
    She brought out of the pocket of her cloak a small parcel wrapped in greaseproof paper.
    “Butter,” she said in awed tones, “real butter.”
    “Have you been going in for highway robbery,” said Klaus, “or merely petty larceny?
    Not that the result is petty—”
    “There is a man outside the door,” she interrupted, “with a bundle. Would you bring it in,
    my dear?”
    Klaus returned with a small sack containing firewood on the top and coal underneath—
    not much, but some.
    “For heaven’s sake, explain,” said Klaus. “Have you met Santa Claus, or what is it?”
    “I met a schoolfriend of mine, that is all, though it is true her name is Christine. Let me
    come to the fire, dear, I want to make it up. She and her husband have just come to live here.
    Give me three sticks—no, four. He was one of the architects or master contractors or something
    who have just built the new Deutsches Museum at Munich. Now the coal. They came to live here
    because her mother’s house—would you like to come and blow this while I prepare the stew?—
    because her mother’s house was empty and her husband has retired, and they thought they might
    as well live here as anywhere else. Oh, dear, how I do run on, I haven’t been so excited since—I
    think I will sit down a moment, I don’t feel well.”
    Klaus abandoned the crackling fire and sprang to help her to the battered old sofa on
    which he slept at night.
    “For pity’s sake lie down and keep quiet a minute,” he said. “I’ll put the kettle on, we’ll
    have coffee and bread-and-butter while the stew cooks. I shall buy a collar and chain for you,
    you run about too much.”
    “No. The coffee is for later on. We shall overeat ourselves if we are not careful. I will lie
    still while you peel the potatoes. Peel four.”
    They feasted at last and were warm at the same time, an almost forgotten luxury, since as
    a rule one could either buy food or fuel, but not both. Ludmilla went on with her story.
    “I told Christine all about you and what a burden I am to you—”
    “Then you told her a pack of lies, and the wolf will get you.”
    “No, for if it were not for me you could go wandering off and find work somewhere.”
    This was perfectly true, but Klaus had hoped it had not occurred to her.
    “Rubbish,” he said stoutly. “If it were not for you I should have turned into a filthy tramp,
    all holes, whiskers and spots.”
    “Spots?”
    “Where I had entertained visitors,” he explained kindly. “Go on about Christine.”
    “She has a son-in-law. Do you know anything about”—she pulled a leaflet from another
    of her numerous pockets and read from it—”transport by land, road and railway, construction of
    tunnels and bridges, ships, aeronautics, or meteorology?”
    “No, but I jolly soon will if it means work. Why?”
    “Because her son-in-law is in charge of the section of the Deutsches Museum which deals
    with all those things, and he wants steady, reliable men to look after them.”
    “I think I could manage that. You only have to walk about and tell people not to touch.”
    “You have to explain things to children when they ask you questions.”
    “Oh, that’s easy,” said Klaus happily. “You just tell ’em they’ll understand all these
    things better when they are a little older.”
    “That wouldn’t have satisfied me when I was young,” said Ludmilla. “Perhaps the young
    folk of the present day are less tiresome than I was.”
    “Even now you haven’t told me where all the food came from.”
    “Out of her larder. We went into her house to talk, and then we went into her larder