ay me;
and it was only by extraordinary courage, skill, and good luck, that
I escaped from these villains, wounded myself, but leaving the chief
aggressor dead on the ground: my sword entered his eye and broke there,
and the villains who were with him fled, seeing their chief fall. They
might have finished me else, for I had no weapon of defence.

Thus it will be seen that our life, for all its splendour, was one of
extreme danger and difficulty, requiring high talents and courage for
success; and often, when we were in a full vein of success, we were
suddenly driven from our ground on account of some freak of a reigning
prince, some intrigue of a disappointed mistress, or some quarrel with
the police minister. If the latter personage were not bribed or won
over, nothing was more common than for us to receive a sudden order of
departure; and so, perforce, we lived a wandering and desultory life.

Though the gains of such a life are, as I have said, very great, yet the
expenses are enormous. Our appearance and retinue was too splendid for
the narrow mind of Pippi, who was always crying out at my extravagance,
though obliged to own that his own meanness and parsimony would never
have achieved the great victories which my generosity had won. With all
our success, our capital was not very great. That speech to the Duke
of Courland, for instance, was a mere boast as far as the two hundred
thousand florins at three months were concerned. We had no credit, and
no money beyond that on our table, and should have been forced to fly if
his Highness had won and accepted our bills. Sometimes, too, we were
hit very hard. A bank is a certainty, ALMOST; but now and then a bad day
will come; and men who have the courage of good fortune, at least, ought
to meet bad luck well: the former, believe me, is the harder task of the
two.

One of these evil chances befell us in the Duke of Baden's territory, at
Mannheim. Pippi, who was always on the look-out for business, offered
to make a bank at the inn where we put up, and where the officers of the
Duke's cuirassiers supped; and some small play accordingly took place,
and some wretched crowns and louis changed hands: I trust, rather to
the advantage of these poor gentlemen of the army, who are surely the
poorest of all devils under the sun.

But, as ill luck would have it, a couple of young students from the
neighbouring University of Heidelberg, who had come to Mannheim for
their quarter'