ictly
virtuous man. The Frau has gone to her account, and Stultz, the great
Stultz, is defunct too, after achieving for himself a baronetcy as the
prize of his peerless scissors, and founding a hospital here in
Carlsruhe. Not to insult the shade of Stultz, I determined to renew my
youth, at least in the matter of plumage. A shop of ready-made clothing
afforded me lavender gloves, silk pocket handkerchief, satin cravat,
detachable collar and a cambric shirt: the American dickey, in which
some of my early sartorial triumphs were effected, is not to be had in
Rhineland. My ornaments purchased, the trouble was--to change my shirt.
The great hotel, the Erbprinz, was no place for a man without a passport
and without baggage: not for the world would I have faced a hotel-clerk
with his accusing register. Yet the street was not to be thought of:
only cats are allowed by etiquette to freshen their linen on the
doorstep.

[Illustration: SUSPICIOUS BAGGAGE]

A resource occurred to me. In ransacking the city for my ornaments I
had observed the castle-park, with its clumps of verdure and almost
deserted walks. Hurrah for the leafy dressing-room!

[Illustration: CARLSRUHE: THE GRAND-DUCAL PARK.]

At the gate a sentinel stopped me. Would he demand my passport? No: he
taps with his finger the lid of that faithful botany-box, my sole
valise. Aware that it contained nothing contraband, I opened it
innocently and demonstratively. At the sight of that resonant cavity,
gaping from ear to ear and belching forth gloves, kerchiefs and minor
haberdashery, the dragon laughed: his mirth took the form of a deep,
guttural, honest German guffaw. He still, however, rapped sonorously on
my box, shaking his head from side to side like a china mandarin. In his
view my box was luggage, and luggage is not permitted in any European
park. Relieved to find that my detention was not more serious, my first
thought was to comply with the conditions of entrance. I begged to leave
my package in the sentry-box, to be reclaimed at departure. The amiable
Cerberus, smiling and nodding, closed his eyes significantly: at this
moment I recollected that my only motive for entering the park lay in
that feature of my paraphernalia, and caught it up again, with a gesture
of parental violence, in the very act of depositing it. The sentry,
watching with increasing delight my evolutions and counter evolutions,
evidently thought me a nimble lunatic, Heaven-sent for the recre