od;
for, having sworn a little more, and Carl having left the castle, he
appeared rather better.

II.

After enduring so many and various emotions, it is hardly to be wondered
at that the baron required some consolation; so, after having changed
his trousers, he took himself off to his favorite turret to allay, by
copious potations, the irritations of his mind.

Bottle after bottle was emptied, and pipe after pipe was filled and
smoked. The fine old Burgundy was gradually getting into the baron's
head; and, altogether, he was beginning to feel more comfortable.

The shades of the winter afternoon had deepened into the evening
twilight, made dimmer still by the aromatic clouds that came, with
dignified deliberation, from the baron's lips, and curled and floated up
to the carved ceiling of the turret, where they spread themselves into a
dim canopy, which every successive cloud brought lower and lower.

The fire, which had been piled up mountain-high earlier in the
afternoon, and had flamed and roared to its heart's content ever since,
had now got to that state--the perfection of a fire to a lazy man--when
it requires no poking or attention of any kind, but just burns itself
hollow, and then tumbles in, and blazes jovially for a little time, and
then settles down to a genial glow, and gets hollow, and tumbles in
again.

The baron's fire was just in this delightful _da capo_ condition, most
favorable of all to the enjoyment of the _dolce far niente_.

For a little while it would glow and kindle quietly, making strange
faces to itself, and building fantastic castles in the depths of its red
recesses, and then the castles would come down with a crash, and the
faces disappear, and a bright flame spring up and lick lovingly the
sides of the old chimney; and the carved heads of improbable men and
impossible women, hewn so deftly round the panels of the old oak
wardrobe opposite, in which the baron's choicest vintages were
deposited, were lit up by the flickering light, and seemed to nod and
wink at the fire in return, with the familiarity of old acquaintances.

Some such fancy as this was disporting itself in the baron's brain; and
he was gazing at the old oak carving accordingly, and emitting huge
volumes of smoke with reflective slowness, when a clatter among the
bottles on the table caused him to turn his head to ascertain the cause.

The baron was by no means a nervous man; however, the sight that met his
eyes w