nto my coffin with me when I am
buried, so that I can show it to the recording angel and explain matters.
I expect to obtain a discount of at least five-and-twenty per cent. off
my bill of crimes for that Bradshaw.

The 3.10 train in the morning was, of course, too late for us. It would
not get us to Ober-Ammergau until about 9 a.m. There was a train leaving
at 7.30 (I let B. find out this) by which we might reach the village some
time during the night, if only we could get a conveyance from Oberau, the
nearest railway-station. Accordingly, we telegraphed to Cook's agent,
who was at Ober-Ammergau (we all of us sneer at Mr. Cook and Mr. Gaze,
and such-like gentlemen, who kindly conduct travellers that cannot
conduct themselves properly, when we are at home; but I notice most of us
appeal, on the quiet, to one or the other of them the moment we want to
move abroad), to try and send a carriage to meet us by that train; and
then went to an hotel, and turned into bed until it was time to start.

We had another grand railway-ride from Munich to Oberau. We passed by
the beautiful lake of Starnberg just as the sun was setting and gilding
with gold the little villages and pleasant villas that lie around its
shores. It was in the lake of Starnberg, near the lordly pleasure-house
that he had built for himself in that fair vale, that poor mad Ludwig,
the late King of Bavaria, drowned himself. Poor King! Fate gave him
everything calculated to make a man happy, excepting one thing, and that
was the power of being happy. Fate has a mania for striking balances. I
knew a little shoeblack once who used to follow his profession at the
corner of Westminster Bridge. Fate gave him an average of sixpence a day
to live upon and provide himself with luxuries; but she also gave him a
power of enjoying that kept him jolly all day long. He could buy as much
enjoyment for a penny as the average man could for a ten-pound
note--more, I almost think. He did not know he was badly off, any more
than King Ludwig knew he was well off; and all day long he laughed and
played, and worked a little--not more than he could help--and ate and
drank, and gambled. The last time I saw him was in St. Thomas's
Hospital, into which he had got himself owing to his fatal passion for
walking along outside the stone coping of Westminster Bridge. He thought
it was "prime," being in the hospital, and told me that he was living
like a fighting-cock, and that he