Until I listened to the Frau von Wintner, I
imagined the German language somewhat weak
in the matter of epithets. She undeceived me
on this head, showing resources of abusive
import that would have done credit to a Homeric
hero. Having given me full ten minutes of a
strong vocabulary, she then turned on the
waiter, scornfully asking him if, at his time of
life, he ought to have let himself be imposed
upon by so palpable and undeniable a swindler
as myself? She clearly showed that there was
no extenuation of his fault, that rogue and
vagabond had been written on my face, and inscribed
in my manner; not to mention that I had
followed the well-beaten track of all my fraternity
in fraud, and ordered everything the most costly
the house could command. In fact, so strenuously
did she urge this point, and so eager did
she seem about enforcing a belief in her statement,
that I almost began to suspect she might
suggest an anatomical examination of me to
sustain her case. Had she been even less eloquent,
the audience would still have been with her, for
it is a curious but unquestionable fact that in
all little visited localities the stranger is
ungraciously regarded and ill looked on.

Whenever I attempted to interpose a word in
my defence, I was overborne at once. Indeed,
public opinion was so decidedly against me, that
I felt very happy in thinking Lynch law was not
a Teutonic institution. The room was now filled
with retainers of the inn, strangers, town-folk,
and police, and, to judge by the violence of their
gestures and the loud tones of their voices, one
would have pronounced me a criminal of the
worst sort.

"But what is it that he has done? What's
his offence?" I heard a voice say from the
crowd, and I fancied his accent was that of a
foreigner. A perfect inundation of vituperative
accusation, however, now poured in, and I could
gather no more. The turmoil and uproar rose
and fell, and fell and rose again, till at last, my
patience utterly exhausted, I burst out into a
very violent attack on the uncivilised habits of
a people who could thus conduct themselves to
a man totally unconvicted of any offence.

"Well, well, don't give way to passion; don't
let temper get the better of you," said a fat,
citizen-like man beside me. " The stranger there
has just paid for what you have had, and all is
settled."

I thought I should have fainted as I heard
these words. Indeed, until that instant, I had
never brought home to my own mind the utter
destitution of my state; but now there I stood,
realising to myself the condition of one of those
we read of in our newspapers as having received
five shillings from the poor-box, while D 490 is
deputed to "make inquiries after him at his
lodgings," and learn particulars of his life and
habits. I could have borne being sent to prison.
I could have endured any amount of severity,
so long as I revolted against its injustice; but
the sense of being an object of actual charity
crushed me utterly, and I could nearly have
cried with vexation.

By degrees the crowd thinned off, and I found
myself sitting alone beside the table where I
had dined, with the hateful old waiter, as though
standing sentinel over me.

"Who is this person," asked I, haughtily,
"who, with an indelicate generosity, has
presumed to interfere with the concerns of a
stranger?"

"The gracious nobleman who has paid for
your dinner is now eating his own at No. 8,"
said the old monster, with a grin.

"I will call upon him when he has dined,"
said I, transfixing the wretch with a look so
stern as to make rejoinder impossible; and then,
throwing my plaid wrapper and my knapsack on
a table near, I strolled out into the street.

Lindau is a picturesque old place, as it stands
rising as it were out of the very waters of the
Lake of Constance, and the great mountain of
the Sentis, with its peak of six thousand feet
high, is a fine object in the distance; while
the gorge of the Upper Rhine offers many a
grand effect of Alpine scenery, not the less
striking when looked at with a setting sun,
which made the foreground more massive and
the hill-tops golden; and yet I carried that in my
heart which made the whole picture as dark and
dreary as Poussin's Deluge. It was all very
beautiful. There, was the snow-white summit,
reflected in the still water of the lake; there,
the rich wood, browned with autumn, and now
tinted with a golden glory, richer again; there,
were the white-sailed boats, asleep on the calm,
surface, streaked with the variegated light of the
clouds above, and it was peaceful as it was
picturesque. But do what I could, I could not
enjoy it, and all because I had lost my purse, just
as if certain fragments of a yellow metal the
more or the less ought to obscure eyesight,
dull the sense of hearing, and make a man's
whole existence miserable. "And after all,"
thought I, " Catinka will be here this evening,
or to-morrow at furthest. Vaterchen was tired,
and could not come on. It was I who left them;
I, in my impatience and ill humour. The old
man doubtless knew nothing of the purse
confided to the girl, nor is it at all needful that he
should. They will certainly follow me, and
why, for the mere inconvenience of an hour or
so, should I persist in seeing the whole world
so crape-covered and sad-looking? Surely this
is not the philosophy my knowledge of life has
taught me. I ought to know and feel that these
daily accidents are but stones on the road one
travels. They may, perchance, wound the foot
or damage the shoe, but they rarely delay the
journey, if the traveller be not faint-hearted and
craven. I will treat the whole incident in a
higher spirit. I will wait for their coming in
that tranquil and assured condition of mind
which is the ripe fruit of a real insight into
mankind. Pitt said, after long years of experience,
that there was more of good than of bad in
human nature. Let it be the remark of some
future biographer that Potts agreed with him."

When I got back to the inn, I was somewhat
puzzled what to do. It would have been impossible