s the clock is going to
strike, souse! some Devil pours a wash-basin down on me, or I bolt
against some fellow coming out, and get myself engaged in endless
quarrels till the time is clean gone.

"Ah! well-a-day! whither are ye fled, ye blissful dreams of coming
fortune, when I proudly thought that here I might even reach the
height of Privy Secretary? And has not my evil star estranged from me
my best patrons? I learn, for instance, that the Councilor, to whom I
have a letter, cannot suffer cropped hair; with immensity of trouble,
the barber fastens me a little cue to my hindhead; but at the first
bow his unblessed knot gives way, and a little shock-dog, running
snuffling about me, frisks off to the Privy Councilor with the cue in
his mouth. I spring after it in terror, and stumble against the
table, where he has been working while at breakfast; and cups, plates,
ink-glass, sand-box, rush jingling to the floor, and a flood of
chocolate and ink overflows the "Relation" he has just been writing.
'Is the Devil in the man?' bellows the furious Privy Councilor, and
shoves me out of the room.

"What avails it that Corrector Paulmann gave me hopes of a writership:
will my malignant fate allow it, which everywhere pursues me?
Today even! Do but think of it! I was purposing to hold my good old
Ascension-day with right cheerfulness of soul; I would stretch a point
for once; I might have gone, as well as any other guest, into Linke's
Bath, and called out proudly: 'Marqueur! a bottle of double beer; best
sort, if you please!' I might have sat till far in the evening, and,
moreover, close by this or that fine party of well-dressed ladies. I
know it, I feel it! heart would have come into me and I should have
been quite another man; nay, I might have carried it so far that when
one or other of them asked, `What o'clock may it be?' or 'What is
it they are playing?' I should have started up with light grace, and
without overturning my glass or stumbling over the bench, but in a
curved posture, moving one step and a half forward, I should have
answered: 'Give me leave, Mademoiselle! it is the overture of the
_Donauweibchen_;' or, 'It is just going to strike six.' Could any
mortal in the world have taken it ill of me? No! I say; the girls
would have looked over, smiling so roguishly, as they always do when
I pluck up heart to show them that I too understand the light tone of
society, and know how ladies should be spoken to. But here--t