g accused of lese majeste."

Schrotter was boiling with rage, and had the greatest difficulty in
restraining his naturally passionate temper. "Many thanks for your
kindness," he said in a choking voice, "and for this scoundrel you have
no reprimand?"

"Sir," screamed the magistrate, springing out of his chair with fury,
"leave this room instantly; and you, Herr Patke, if you wish to bring
an action for libel against the gentleman you may call upon me as a
witness."

Patke was too modest to avail himself of this friendly offer. Wilhelm
dragged Schrotter out of the office as fast as he could, and even
outside they still heard the magistrate's grunts of wrath.

Dark days followed, in which Schrotter seemed to live over again the
worst horns of the "wild year." A moral pestilence--the craze for
denunciation--spread itself over the whole of Germany, sparing neither
the palace nor the hut. No one was safe, either in the bosom of the
family, at the club table, in the lecture room, or in the street, from
the low spy who, from fanaticism or stupidity, from personal spite or
desire to make himself conspicuous, took hold of some hasty or
imprudent word, turned it round, mangled it, and brought it redhot to
the magistrates, who seldom had the courage to kick the informer
downstairs. Such unspeakable depths of human baseness came to light, so
full of corruption and pestilence, that the eye turned in horror from
the incredible spectacle. The newspapers brought daily reports of
denunciations for "lese majeste," and when Schrotter read them he
clasped his hands in horrified dismay and exclaimed, "Are we in
Germany? are these my fellow-countrymen?" He became at last so
disgusted that he gave up reading the German papers, and derived his
knowledge of what was going on in the world from the two London papers
which, from the habit of a quarter of a century, he still took in. He
wished to hear no more about denunciations by which, with the aid of
police and magistrates, every kind of cowardice and vileness, social
envy and religious hatred, rivalry, spite, and inborn malevolence,
sought a riskless gratification, and usually found it in full measure.
But it took away all pleasure in social intercourse. One learned to be
cautious and suspicious. One grew accustomed to see an enemy in every
stranger, and to be upon one's guard before a neighbor as before some
lurking traitor. Hypocrisy became an instinct of self-preservation;
every one ca