continued he,  "to you, in the mixed company which
frequent such humble hearths there would be
matter of interest or amusement; but, to a man
like myself, these chance companionships arc
delightful. Here all are stragglers, all adventurers.
Not a man that deposits his pack in the
corner and draws in his chair to the circle but is
a wanderer and a pilgrim of one sort or other."
He drew me an amusing picture of one of these
groups, wherein, even without telling his story,
each gave such insight into his life and travels as
to present a sort of drama.

Whether it was that my companion had drawn
too freely on his imagination, or that we had
fallen on an unfortunate moment, I cannot say,
but though we found the company at the Balance
numerous and varied, there was none of the
sociality I looked for, still less of that generous
warmth and good greeting which he assured me
was the courtesy of such places. The men were
chiefly carriers, with their mule-teams and heavy
waggons, bound for the Bavarian Tyrol. There
was a sprinkling of Jew pedlars, on their way
to the Vorarlberg; a deserter from the Austrian
army, trying to get back to Hesse Cassel; and an
Italian image carrier, with a green parrot and a
well-filled purse, going back to finish his days at
Lucca.

Now none of these were elements of a very
exalted or exclusive rank; they were each and all
of them taken from the very base of the social
pyramid; and yet, would it be believed that they
regarded our entrance amongst them as an act of
rare impudence!

A more polished company might have been
satisfied with averted heads or cold looks; these
were less equivocal. One called out to the landlord
to know if he expected any gipsies; another,
affecting to treat us as solicitors for their
patronage, said he had no "batzen" to bestow on
buffoonery; a third suggested we should get up
our theatricals under the cart-shed outside, and
beat the drum when we were ready; and the
deserter, a poor weak-looking, mangy wretch,
with a ragged fatigue-jacket and broken boots,
put his arm round Catinka's waist, to draw her
on his knee, for the which she dealt him such a
slap on the face as fairly sent him on the
floor, in which ignoble position Vaterchen
kicked him again and again. In an instant all
were upon us. Carters, pedlars, and image man
assailed us furiously. I suppose I beat somebody;
I know that several beat me. The impression left
upon me when all was over was of a sort of
human kaleidoscope, where the people turned
every way without ceasing. Now we seemed all on
our feet, now on our heads, now on the floor, now
in the air, Vaterchen flying about like a demon,
while Tintefleck stood in a corner, with a gleaming
stiletto in her hand, saying something in Calabrian,
which sounded like on invitation to come
and be killed.

The police came at last; and after a noisy scene
of accusation and denial, the weight of evidence
went against us, and we were marched off to
prison, poor old Vaterchen crying like a child for
all the disgrace and misery he had brought on his
benefactor; and while he kissed my hand, swearing
that a whole life's devotion would not be
enough to recompense me for what he had been
the means of inflicting on me: Catinka took it
more easily, her chief regret apparently being
that nobody came near enough to give her a
chance with her knife, which she assured us she
wielded with a notable skill, and could, with a
jerk, send flying through a door, like a javelin, at
full six paces' distance; nor, indeed, was it without
considerable persuasion she could be induced
to restore it to its sheath, which truth obliges me
to own was inside her garter. Our prison, an old
tower adjoining the hike, had been once the
dungeon of John Huss, and the torture chamber,
as it was still called, continued to be used for
mild transgressors, such as we were. A small
bribe induced the gaoler's wife to take poor
Tintefleck for the night into her own quarters, and
Vaterchen and I were sole possessors of the
gloomy old hall, which opened by a balcony, railed
like a sort of cage, over the lake.

If the torture chamber had been denuded of its
flesh pincers and thumbscrews, and the other
ingenious devices of human cruelty, I am bound to
own that its traditions as a place of suffering had
not died out, as the fleas left nothing to be
desired on the score of misery. Whether it was
that they had been pinched by a long fast, or that
we were more tender, cutaneously, than the
aborigines, I know not, but I can safely aver that I
never passed such a night, and sincerely trust
that I may never pass such another. Though the
air from the lake was cold and chilly, we preferred
to crouch on the balcony to remaining within
the walls, but even here our persecutors
followed us.

Vaterchen slept through it all; an occasional
convulsive jerk would show, at times, when one
of the enemy had chanced upon some nervous
fibre; but on the whole he bore up like one used
to such martyrdom, and able to brave it. As for
me, when morning broke, I looked like a strong
case of confluent small-pox, with the addition
that my heavy eyelids nearly closed over my eyes,
and my lips swelled out like a Kaffir's. How that
young minx Catinka laughed at me. All the old
man's signs, warnings, menaces, were in vain;
she screamed aloud with laughter, and never
ceased, even as we were led into the tribunal and
before the dread presence of the judge.

The judgment-seat was not imposing. It was
a long, low, ill-lighted chamber, with a sort of
raised counter at one end, behind which sat three
elderly men, dressed like master sweeps— that is,
of the old days of climbing-boys. The prisoners
were confined in a thing like a fold, and there
leaned against one end of the same pen as our-
selves a square-built , thick-set man of about eight
and forty, or fifty, dressed in a suit of coarse
drab, and who, notwithstanding an immense red
beard and moustache, a clear blue eye and broad
brow proclaimed to be English. He was being