but his terrified eyes and his shaking cheeks
declared it.

"Never mind," said I, encouragingly, "it
will not hurt us to make a sparing meal
occasionally; with the venison steak, the fried
salmon, the duck with olives, and the apricot
tart, we will satisfy appetite, and persuade
ourselves, if we can, that we have fared
luxuriously."

"And the wine, sir?" asked he.

"Ah, there we are difficult. No little Baden
vintage, no small wine of the Bergstrasse, can
impose upon us! Liebfrauen-milch, or, if you
can guarantee it, Marcobrunner will do; but,
mind, no substitutes!"

He laid his hand over his heart and bowed
low; and, as he moved away, I said to myself,
"What a mesmerism there must be in real
money, since, even with the mockery of it, I
have made that creature a bond slave." Brief
as was the interval in preparing my meal, it was
enough to allow me a very considerable share of
reflection, and I found that, do what I would, a
certain voice within would whisper, " Where
are your fine resolutions now, Potts? Is this
the life of reality that you had promised
yourself? Are you not at the old work again? Are
you not masquerading it once more? Don't
you know well enough that all this pretension
of yours is bad money, and that at the first ring
of it on the counter you will be found out?"

"This you may rely on, gracious sir," said the
waiter, as he laid a bottle on the table beside
me with a careful hand. "It is the orange
seal;" and he then added, in a whisper, "taken
from the Margrave's cellar in the revolution of
'93, and every flask of it worth a province."

"We shall see— we shall see,' said I,
haughtily; " serve the soup!"

If I had been Belshazzar, I believe I should
have eaten very heartily, and drunk my wine
with a great relish, notwithstanding that drawn
sword. I don't know how it is, but if I can only
see the smallest bit of terra firma between
myself and the edge of a precipice, I feel as though
I had a whole vast prairie to range over. For
the life of me I cannot realise anything that
may, or may not, befal me remotely. "Blue
are the hills far off," says the adage; and on the
converse of the maxim do I aver, that faint are
all dangers that are distant. An immediate
peril overwhelms me; but I could look forward
to a shipwreck this day fortnight with a
fortitude truly heroic.

"This is a nice old half-forgotten sort of
place," thought I, " a kind of vulgar Venice,
water-washed, and muddy, and dreary, and
do-nothing. I'll stay here for a week or so; I'll
give myself up to the drowsy ' genius loci;' I'll
Germanise to the top of my bent; who is to say
what metaphysical melancholy, dashed with a
strange diabolic humour, may not come of
constantly feeding on this heavy cookery, and
eternally listening to their gurgling gutturals?
I may come out a Wieland or a Herder, with a
sprinkling of Henri Heine! Yes," said I, " this
is the true way to approach life; first of all,
develop your own faculties, and then mark how
in their exercise you influence your fellow-men.
Above all, however, cultivate your individuality,
respect this the greatest of all the unities."

"Ja, gnädiger Herr," said the old waiter, as
he tried to step away from my grasp, for, without
knowing it, I had laid hold of him by the
wrist while I addressed to him this speech.
Desirous to re-establish my character for sanity,
somewhat compromised by this incident, I said,

"Have you a money-changer in these parts?
If so, let me have some silver for this English
gold." I put my hand in my pocket for my
purse; not finding it, I tried another and
another. I ransacked them all over again, patted
myself, shook my coat, looked into my hat, and
then, with a sudden flash of memory, I bethought
me that I had left it with Catinka, and was
actually without one sou in the world! I sat
down, pale and almost fainting, and my arms fell
powerless at my sides.

"I have lost my purse!" gasped I out, at
length.

"Indeed!" said the old man, but with a tone
of such palpable scorn that it actually sickened
me.

"Yes," said I, with all that force which is
the peculiar prerogative of truth; " and in it all
the money I possessed."

"I have no doubt of it," rejoined he, in the
same dry tone as before.

"You have no doubt of what, old man? Or
what do you mean by the supercilious quietness
with which you assent to my misfortune? Send
the landlord to me."

"I will do more; I will send the police,"
said he, as he shuffled out of the room.

I have met scores of men on my way through
life who would not have felt the slightest
embarrassment in such a situation as mine, fellows so
accustomed to shipwreck, that the cry of
"Breakers ahead!" or " Man the boats!" would
have occasioned neither excitement nor trepidation.
What stuff they are made of instead of
nerves, muscles, and arteries, I cannot imagine,
since, when the question is self-preservation,
how can it possibly be more imminent than when
not alone your animal existence is jeopardised,
but the dearer and more precious life of fame
and character is in peril?

For a moment I thought that though this
besotted old fool of a waiter might suspect my
probity, the more clear-sighted intelligence of
the landlord would at once recognise my honest
nature, and with the confidence of a noble
conviction say, "Don't tell me that the man yonder
is a knave. I read him very differently. Tell
me your story, sir." And then I would tell it.
It is not improbable that my speculation might
have been verified had it not been that it was a
landlady and not a landlord who swayed the
destinies of the inn. Oh, what a wise invention
of our ancestors was the Salique law! How
justly they appreciated the unbridled rashness
of the female nature in command! How well
they understood the one-idea'd impetuosity with
which they rush to wrong conclusions!