fferent sort of mood from
what I expected. I shook the old "Rue Branch" himself heartily by the
hand, and having distributed a circle of gratuities--for the sum total
of which I should have probably been maltreated by a London waiter--I
took my staff, and sallied forth towards Weimar, accompanied by a shower
of prayers and kind wishes, that, whether sincere or not, made me feel
happier the whole day after.

CHAPTER XXXIII. "ERFURT"

I narrowly escaped being sent to the guardhouse for the night, as I
approached Erfurt--for seeing that it was near nine o'clock when the
gates of the fortress are closed, I quickened my pace to a trot, not
aware of the "reglement" which forbids any one to pass rapidly over the
drawbridges of a fortification. Now, though the rule be an admirable
one when applied to those heavy diligences which, with three tons of
passengers, and six of luggage, come lumbering along the road, and
might well be supposed to shake the foundations of any breast-work or
barbican; yet, that any man of mortal mould, any mere creature of the
biped class--even with two shirts and a night-cap in his pack--could do
this, is more than I can conceive; and so it was, I ran, and if I did, a
soldier ran after me, three more followed him, and a corporal brought
up the rear, and in fact, so imposing was the whole scene, that any
unprejudiced spectator, not overversed in military tactics, might have
imagined that I was about to storm Erfurt, and had stolen a march upon
the garrison. After all, the whole thing was pretty much like what Murat
did at Vienna, and perhaps it was that which alarmed them.

I saw I had committed a fault, but what it was I couldn't even guess,
and as they all spoke together, and such precious bad German, too, (did
you ever know a foreigner not complain of the abominable faults people
commit in speaking their own language?) that though I cried "peccavi,"
I remembered myself, and did not volunteer any confessions of iniquity,
before I heard the special indictment, and it seemed I had very little
chance of doing that, such was the confusion and uproar.

Now, there are two benevolent institutions in all law, and according
to these, a man may plead, either "in forma pauperis," or "in forma
stultus." I took the latter plea, and came off triumphant--my sentence
was recorded as a "Dummer Englander," and I went my way, rejoicing.

Well, "I wish them luck of it!" as we say in Ireland, who have a fancy
f