keep the remainder of my remarks for another
time and place."

"'Reserving to himself,'" dictated he, "'the
right of uttering still more bitter and untruthful
comments on a future occasion.' " And the
clerk wrote the words as he spoke them.

"You will sign this here," said he, presenting
me with the pen.

"Nothing of the kind, Herr Procurator. I
will not lend myself to any, even the most ordinary,
form of your stupid system."

"'And refuses to sign the foregoing,' " dictated
he, in the same unmoved voice. This
done, he arose and proceeded to draw on his
gloves. "The act of allegation I now commit
to your hands," said he, calmly, "and you will
have a week to reflect upon the course you desire
to adopt."

"One question before you go: Is the person
called Rigges here at this moment, and can I
see him?"

He consulted for a few seconds with his subordinate,
and then replied: "These questions
we are of opinion are irrelevant to the defence,
and need not be answered."

"I only ask you, as a favour, Herr Procurator,"
said I.

"The law recognises no favours, nor accepts
courtesies."

"Does it also reject common sense?—is it
deaf to all intelligence?—is it indifferent to
every appeal to reason?—is it dead to——"

But he would not wait for more, and having
saluted me thrice profoundly, retired from the
gallery, and left me alone with my indignation.

The great pile of paper still lay on the table
next me, and in my anger I hurled it from me
to the middle of the room, venting I know not
what passionate wrath at the same time on
everything German: "This the land of primitive
simplicity and patriarchal virtues, forsooth!
This the country of elevated tastes and generous
instincts! Why, it is all Bureau and Barrack!"
I went on for a long time in this strain, and I
felt the better for it. The operative surgeons
tell us that no men recover so certainly or so
speedily after great operations as the fellows
who scream out and make a terrible uproar. It
is your patient, self-controlling creature who
sinks under the suffering he will not confess;
and I am confident that it is a wise practice to
blow off the steam of one's indignation, and say
all the most bitter things one can think of in
moments of disappointment, and, so to say, prepare
the chambers of your mind for the reception
of better company.

After a while I got up, gathered the papers
together, and prepared to read them. Legal
amplifications and circumlocutions are of all
lands and peoples; but for the triumph of this
diffusiveness commend me to the Germans. To
such an extent was this the case, that I reached
the eighth page of the precious paper before I
got finally out of the titular description of the
vice-governornor in whose district the event was
laid. Armed, however, with heroic resolution,
I persevered, and read on through the entire
night— I will not say without occasional refreshers
in the shape of short naps— but the
day was already breaking when I turned over
the last page, and read the concluding little
blessing on the Emperor under whose benign
reign all good was encouraged, all evil punished,
and the Hoch-gelehrter— Hoch wohl-geborner
Herr der Hofrath, Ober Procurators-flscal-Secretär,
charged with the due execution of the
present decree.

In the language of précis writing the event
might  be stated thus: "A certain Englishman,
named Rigges, travelling by post, arrived
at the torrent of Dornbirn a short time before
noon, and while waiting there for the arrival
of some peasants to accompany his carriage
through the stream, was joined by a foot-traveller,
by whom he was speedily recognised.
Whatever the nature of the relations previously
subsisting between them— and it may be presumed
they were not of the most amicable— no
sooner had they exchanged glances than they
engaged in deadly conflict. Rigges was well
armed; the stranger had no weapon whatever,
but was a man of surpassing strength, for he
tore the door of the carriage from its hinges,
and dragged Rigges out upon the road before
the other could offer any resistance. The
postilion, who had gone to summon the peasants,
was speedily recalled by the report of
fire-arms; three shots were fired in rapid succession,
and when he reached the spot it was to
see two men struggling violently in the torrent,
the stranger dragging Rigges with all his
might towards the middle of the stream, and
the other screaming wildly for succour. The
conflict was a terrible one, for the foot-traveller
seemed determined on self-destruction, if he
could only involve the other in his own fate.
At last Rigges's strength gave way, and the
other threw himself upon him, and they both
went down beneath the water.

"The stranger emerged in an instant, but one
of the peasants on the bank struck him a violent
blow with his ash pole, and he fell back into the
stream. Meanwhile, the others had rescued
Rigges, who lay panting, but unconscious, on
the ground. They were yet ministering to his
recovery when they heard a wild shout of derisive
triumph, and now saw that the other,
though carried away by the torrent, had gained
a small shingly bank in the middle of the Rhine,
and was waving his hat in mockery of them.
They were too much occupied with the care of
the wounded man, however, to bestow more attention
on him. One of Rigges's arms was badly
fractured, and his jaw also broken, while he complained
still more of the pain of some internal injuries:
so severe, indeed, were his sufferings that
he had to be carried on a litter to Feldkirch.
His first care on arriving was to denounce the
assailant, whose name he gave as Harpar, declaring
him to be a most notorious member of a
" Rouge" society, and one whose capture was an
object of European interest. In fact, Rigges
went so far as to pretend that he had himself
perilled life in the attempt to secure him.