the day's soup: I, looking out of the German
chariot window in that delicious
traveller's-trance which knows no cares, no
yesterdays, no to-morrows, nothing but the passing
objects and the passing scents and sounds!
And so I came, in due course of delight,
to Strasbourg, where I passed a wet Sunday
evening at a window, while an idle trifle of
a vaudeville was played for me at the opposite
house.

How such a large house came to have only
three people living in it, was its own affair.
There were at least a score of windows in its
high roof alone; how many in its grotesque
front, I soon gave up counting. The owner was
a shopkeeper, by name Straudenheim; by trade
—I couldn't make out what by trade, for he had
forborne to write that up, and his shop was
shut.

At first, as I looked at Straudeuheim's through
the steadily falling rain, I set him up in business
in the goose-liver line. But, inspection of
Straudenheim, who became visible at a window
on the second floor, convinced me that there
was something more precious than liver in
the case. He wore a black velvet skull-cap,
and looked usurious and rich. A large-lipped,
pear-nosed old man, with white hair, and keen
eyes, though near-sighted. He was writing
at a desk, was Straudenheim, and ever and
again left off writing, put his pen in his mouth,
and went through actions with his right hand,
like a man steadying piles of cash. Five-franc
pieces, Straudenheim, or golden Napoleons? A
jeweller, Straudenheim, a dealer in money, a
diamond merchant, or what?

Below Straudenheim, at a window on the first
floor, sat his housekeeper—far from young, but
of a comely presence, suggestive of a well-
matured foot and ankle. She was cheerily
dressed, had a fan in her hand, and wore large
gold earrings and a large gold cross. She
would have been out holiday-making (as I
settled it) but for the pestilent rain. Strasbourg
had given up holiday-making for that once, as a
bad job, because the rain was jerking in gushes
out of the old roof-spouts, and running in a brook
down the middle of the street. The housekeeper,
her arms folded on her bosom and her
fan tapping her chin, was bright and smiling at
her open window, but otherwise Straudenheim's
house front was very dreary. The housekeeper's
was the only open window in it; Straudenheim
kept himself close, though it was a sultry evening
when air is pleasant, and though the rain had
brought into the town that vague refreshing
smell of grass which rain does bring in the
summer-time.

The dim appearance of a man at Straudenheim's
shoulder, inspired me with a misgiving that
somebody had come to murder that flourishing
merchant for the wealth with which I had
handsomely endowed him: the rather, as it was an
excited man, lean and long of figure, and
evidently stealthy of foot. But, he conferred with
Straudenheim instead of doing him a mortal
injury, and then they both softly opened the
other window of that room—which was
immediately over the housekeeper's—and tried to
see her by looking down. And my opinion
of Straudenheim was much lowered when I
saw that eminent citizen spit out of window,
clearly with the hope of spitting on the
housekeeper.

The unconscious housekeeper fanned herself,
tossed her head, and laughed. Though
unconscious of Straudenheim, she was conscious
of somebody else—of me?—there was nobody
else.

After leaning so far out of window, that I
confidently expected to see their heels tilt up,
Straudenheim and the lean man drew their
heads in and shut the window. Presently, the
house door secretly opened, and they slowly and
spitefully crept forth into the pouring rain.
They were coming over to me (I thought) to
demand satisfaction for my looking at the
housekeeper, when they plunged into a
recess in the architecture under my window,
and dragged out the puniest of little soldiers
begirt with the most innocent of little swords.
The tall glazed head-dress of this warrior,
Straudenheim instantly knocked off, and out of
it fell two sugar-sticks, and three or four large
lumps of sugar.

The warrior made no effort to recover his
property or to pick up his shako, but looked
with an expression of attention at Straudenheim
when he kicked him five times, and also at the
lean man when he kicked him five times, and again
at Straudenheim when he tore the breast of his
(the warrior's) little coat open, and shook all his
ten fingers in his face, as if they were ten thousand.
When these outrages had been committed,
Straudenheim and his man went into the house
again and barred the door. A wonderful circumstance
was, that the housekeeper who saw it all
(and who could have taken six such warriors to
her buxom bosom at once), only fanned herself
and laughed as she had laughed before, and
seemed to have no opinion about it, one way or
other.

But, the chief effect of the drama was the
remarkable vengeance taken by the little warrior .
Left alone in the rain, he picked up his shako;
put it on, all wet and dirty as it was; retired
into a court, of which Straudenheim's house
formed the corner; wheeled about; and bringing
his two forefingers close to the top of his
nose, rubbed them over one another, crosswise,
in derision, defiance, and contempt of
Straudenheim. Although Straudenheim could not
possibly be supposed to be conscious of this
strange proceeding, it so inflated and comforted
the little warrior's soul, that twice he went
away, and twice came back into the court to
repeat it, as though it must goad his enemy to
madness. Not only that, but he afterwards
came back with two other small warriors, and
they all three did it together. Not only that—
as I live to tell the tale!—but just as it was
falling quite dark, the three came back, bringing
with them a huge, bearded Sapper, whom
they moved, by recital of the original wrong,