served the office of syndic in the town, and was
thus for ever exempt from the ' billet,' and I led
him into my little sitting-room and showed him
my 'brevet,' framed and glazed, over the chimney
He laughed heartily at my remonstrance,
coolly turned the ' brevet ' with its face to the
wall, and said,

"'If you don't want twelve of us instead of
six, you'll keep your tongue quiet, and give us
a stoop of your best wine.'

"I did not wait to answer him, but seized my
hat and hurried away to the Platz Commandant,
He was an old enemy of mine, but I could not
help it; his was the only authority I could
appeal to, and he was bound to do me justice.
When I reached the bureau, it was so crowded
with soldiers and townsfolk, some seeking for
billets, some insisting on their claim to be free,
that I could not get past the door, and, after
an hour's waiting, I was fain to give up the
attempt, and turned back home again, determined
to make my statement in writing, which, after
all, might have been the most fitting.

"I found my doors wide open when I got
there, and my shop crowded with soldiers, who,
either seated on the counter or squatting on
their knapsacks, had helped themselves freely
to my wine, even to raising the top of an old
cask, and drinking it in large cups from the
barrel, which they handed liberally to their
comrades as they passed.

"My heart was too full to care much for the
loss, though the insult pressed me sorely, and,
pushing my way through, I gained the inner
room to find it crowded like the shop. All was
in disorder and confusion. The old musket my
father had carried for many a year, and which
had hung over the chimney as an heirloom, lay
smashed in fragments on the floor; some wanton
fellow had run his bayonet through my
' brevet' as syndic, and hung it up in derision as
a banner; and one, he was a corporal, had taken
down the wreath of white roses that lay on
Gretchen's coffin till it was laid in the earth,
and placed it on his head. When I saw this,
my senses left me; I gave a wild shriek, and
dashed both my hands in his face. I tried to
strangle him; I would have torn him with my
teeth had they not dragged me off and dashed
me on the ground, where they trampled on me
and beat me, and then carried me away to
prison.

"I was four days in prison before I was
brought up to be examined. I did not know
whether it had been four or forty, for my senses
had Ieft me and I was mad; perhaps it was the
cold dark cell and the silence restored me, but
I came out calm and collected. I remembered
everything to the smallest incident.

"The soldiers were heard first; they agreed
in everything, and their story had all the air of
truth about it. They owned they had taken
my wine, but said that the regiment was ready
and willing to pay for it so soon as I come back,
and that all the rest they had done were only
the usual follies of troops on a march. I began
by claiming my exemption as a syndic, but was
stopped at once by being told that my claim
had never been submitted to the author
and that in my outrage on the imperial force I
had forfeited all consideration on that score.
My offence was easily proven. I did not deny
it, and I was lectured for nigh an hour on the
enormity of my crime, and then sentenced to pay
a fine of a thousand zwanzigers to the emperor,
and to receive four-and-twenty blows with the
stick. ' It should have been eight-and-forty but
for my age,' he said.

"On the same stool where I sat to hear my
sentence was a circus man, waiting the Platz
Commandant's leave to give some representations
in the village. I knew him from his dress, but
had never spoken to him nor he to me; just,
however, as the commandant had delivered the
words of my condemnation he turned to look at
me; mayhap to see how I bore up under my
misfortune. I saw his glance, and I did my best
to sustain it. I wanted to bear myself
manfully throughout, and not to let any one know
that my heart was broken, which I felt it was.
The struggle was, perhaps, more than I was able
for, and, while the tears gushed out and ran
down my cheeks, I burst out laughing, and
laughed away fit after fit, making the most
terrible faces all the while; so outrageously droll
were my convulsions, that every one around
laughed too, and there was the whole court
screaming madly with the same impulse, and
unable to control it.

"' Take the fool away!' cried the comman-
dant at last, ' and bring him to reason with a
hazel rod.' And they carried me off, and I was
flogged.

"It was about a week after I was down near
Commachio. I don't know how I got there, but I
was in rags and had no money, and the circus
people came past and saw me. ' There's the old
fellow that nearly killed us with his droll face,'
said the chief. ' I'll give you two zwanzigers a
day, my man, if you'll only give us a few grins
like that every evening. Is it a bargain?'

"I laughed. I could not keep now from
laughing at everything, and the bargain was
made, and I was a clown from that hour. They
taught me a few easy tricks to help me in my
trade, but it is my face that they care for—none
can see it unmoved."

He turned on me as he spoke with a fearful
contortion of countenance, but, moved by his
story, and full only of what I had been listening
to, I turned away and shed tears.

"Yes," said he, meditatively, " many a
happy heart is kindled at the fire that is consuming
another. As for myself, both joy and
sorrow are dead within me. I am without hope,
and, stranger still, without fear."

"But you are not without benevolence,"
said I, as I looked towards the sleeping girl.

"She was so like Gretchen," said he; and he
bent down his head and sobbed bitterly.

I would have asked him some questions about
her if I dared, but I felt so rebuked by the
sorrow of the old man, that my curiosity seemed
almost unfeeling.