Owing to his tastes and habits he had been dubbed Professor by his friends.
"Ach! Van der Kemp," he exclaimed, while his coal-black eyes glittered as they shook hands, "_vat_ a booterfly I saw to-day! It beat all creation! The vay it flew--oh! But, excuse me--v'ere did you come from, and vy do you come?
An' who is your frond ?" He turned to Nigel as he spoke, and doffed his sombrero with a gracious bow.
"An Englishman--Nigel Roy--who has joined me for a few months," said the hermit.

"Let me introduce you, Nigel, to my good friend, Professor Verkimier." Nigel held out his hand and gave the naturalist's a shake so hearty, that a true friendship was begun on the spot--a friendship which was rapidly strengthened when the professor discovered that the English youth had a strong leaning towards his own favourite studies.
"Ve vill hont an' shot togezzer, mine frond," he said, on making this discovery, "ant I vill show you v'ere de best booterflies are to be fount--Oh! sooch a von as I saw to---- but, excuse me, Van der Kemp.

Vy you come here joost now ?" "To save _you_" said the hermit, with a scintillation of his half-pitiful smile.
"To safe _me_!" exclaimed Verkimier, with a look of surprise which was greatly intensified by the rotundity of the blue spectacles.

"Vell, I don't feel to vant safing joost at present." "It is not that danger threatens _you_ so much as your friend the Rajah," returned the hermit.

"But if he falls, all under his protection fall along with him.