ns. The ride was long
and dull, for there was little prospect to be caught through the small,
dirty window; and the air tasted of German tinder. From a cottage villa
on the roadside, a German student added himself to the three passengers
that started from Wusterhausen. He came to us with a pipe in his mouth,
unwashed, and hurriedly swaddled in a morning gown, carelessly tied with
a cord about the middle. After a few miles travelling the vehicle was
full, and remained full--until we at last reached Berlin.

There I found no work, and wandered listlessly through the museums and
picture-galleries; for a troubled mind is a poor critic in works of art.
So I squeezed myself into the Police Court, meaning to leave Berlin, and
had the distinction of being beckoned, before my turn out of the reeking
mass of applicants for passports, because my clothes had a respectable
appearance, and I wore a showy pin in my cravat.

CHAPTER IX.

BERLIN.--OUR HERBERGE.

Fairly in Prussia! We have passed the frontier town of Perleberg, and
press onward in company with a glovemaker of Berlin, last from
Copenhagen, whom we have overtaken on the road towards Wusterhausen.

"Thou wouldst know, good friend, the nature of my prospects in Berlin
when I arrive there? Have I letters of recommendation--am I provided in
case of the worst? Brother, not so! I am provided for nothing. I dare
the vicissitudes of fortune. I had a friend in Hamburg, a Frenchman, who
departed thence five months ago for Berlin, under a promise to write to
me at the lapse of a month. He has never written, and he is my hope.
That is all. Let us go on."

"I have a cousin," says the glovemaker, "who is a jeweller in Berlin. I
will recommend you to him. His name is Kupferkram."

"Strange! I knew a Kupferkram in Hamburg; a short, sallow man, with no
beard."

"A Prussian?"

"Yes."

"It cannot be that my cousin was in Hamburg and I not know it. I was
there twelve months."

"Why not? A German will be anywhere in the course of twelve months
except where you expect to find him."

"His name is Gottlob--Gottlob Kupferkram."

"The very man! Does he not lisp like a child, and his father sell
sausages in the stadt?"

"Donnerwetter! Ja!"

This may not appear to be of much importance, but to me it is everything;
for upon the discovery of this vender of sausages depends my meeting with
my best and only friend in Berlin, Alcibiade Tourniquet, of Argenteu