pursued by a pack of terrible hounds; again, on a third wall, the
stout young gentleman had undergone a further metamorphosis which
almost endangered his identity; he was standing at the edge of a
swamp, and a couple of ducks were making somersaults in the air, as
they fluttered with bruised wings down to where the dogs stood
expecting them; on wall number four, which contained the
_chef-d'oeuvre_ of the collection, the young Nimrod, who everywhere
bore a more or less remote resemblance to Fritz Hahn, was engaged in a
mortal combat with a wild boar, and was performing miraculous feats of
strength and prowess. The next room,--to which it was, for some
unknown reason, deemed a high privilege to be admitted,--was
ornamented with a variety of trophies of the chase, which were
intended, no doubt, as incontestable proofs of the veracity of the
frescoed narrative. There were stuffed stags' heads crowned with
enormous antlers (of a species, as a naturalist asserted, which is not
found outside of North America), heads of bears, the insides of whose
mouths were painted in the bloodiest of colors, and boars, whose
upward-pointed tusks gave evidence of incredible blood-thirstiness.
Even the old clock in the corner (a piece of furniture which every
customer took pains to assure Mr. Hahn that he envied him) had a frame
of curiously carved and intertwisted antlers, the ingenious
workmanship of which deserved all the admiration which it received.
Mr. Hahn had got it for a song at an auction somewhere in the
provinces; but the history of the clock which Fritz told omitted
mentioning this incident.

In this inner room on the 19th of April, 1864, Mr. Hahn and his son
were holding a solemn consultation. The news of the fall of Duppel,
and the consequent conquest of all Schleswig, had just been received,
and the capital was in a fever of warlike enthusiasm. That two great
nations like the Prussians and the Austrians, counting together more
than fifty millions, could conquer poor little Denmark, with its two
millions, seemed at that time a great and glorious feat, and the
conquerors have never ceased to be proud of it. Mr. Hahn, of course,
was overflowing with loyalty and patriotism, which, like all his other
sentiments, he was anxious to convert into cash. He had therefore made
arrangements for a _Siegesfest_, on a magnificent scale, which was to
take place on the second of May, when the first regiments of the
victorious army were expected