outstretched landscape, had they not feared
the dampness of the earth. "It were divine," observed one of the
party, "had we but a Turkey carpet to spread here." The wish was
scarcely expressed when the man in the gray coat had his hand in
his pocket, and was busied in drawing thence, with a modest and even
humble deportment, a rich Turkey carpet interwoven with gold. The
servants received it as a matter of course, and opened it on the
required spot. The company, without ceremony, took their places upon
it; for myself, I looked again in amazement on the man, at the pocket,
at the carpet, which measured above twenty paces long and ten
in breadth, and rubbed my eyes, not knowing what to think of it,
especially as nobody saw anything extraordinary in it.

I would fain have had some explanation regarding the man, and have
asked who he was, but I knew not to whom to address myself, for I
was almost more afraid of the gentlemen's servants than of the served
gentlemen. At length I took courage, and stepped up to a young man who
appeared to me to be of less consideration than the rest, and who had
often stood alone. I begged him softly to tell me who the agreeable
man in the gray coat there was.

"He there, who looks like an end of thread that has escaped out of a
tailor's needle?"

"Yes, he who stands alone."

"I don't know him," he replied, and, as it seemed, in order to avoid
a longer conversation with me he turned away and spoke of indifferent
matters to another.

The sun began now to shine more powerfully, and to inconvenience the
ladies. The lovely Fanny addressed carelessly to the gray man, whom,
as far as I am aware, no one had yet spoken to, the trifling question,
"Whether he had not, perchance, also a tent by him?" He answered her
by an obeisance most profound, as if an unmerited honor were done
him, and had already his hand in his pocket, out of which I saw come
canvas, poles, cordage, iron-work--in short, everything which belongs
to the most splendid pleasure-tent. The young gentlemen helped to
expand it, and it covered the whole extent of the carpet, and nobody
found anything remarkable in it.

I had already become uneasy, nay, horrified at heart, but how
completely so, as, at the very next wish expressed, I saw him yet pull
out of his pocket three roadsters--I tell thee, three beautiful great
black horses, with saddle and caparison. Bethink thee! for God's
sake!--three saddled horses, still out of the same