rague, and Vienna, of which I have told you."

"I can well imagine," said Sylvester, "the impression which your
unexpected, equivocal, most questionable luck must have made upon you.
It was greatly to your credit that you resisted the temptation, and
that you recognized how it was that the threatening danger lay in the
very luck itself. But, allow me to say, your own tale, the manner in
which you have, with such accuracy, characterized the real gambler in
it, must make it plain to yourself that you never had within you the
true love of gambling, and that, if you had, the courage which you
displayed would have been very difficult, perhaps impossible. Vincent,
who, I believe, knows a great deal more about such matters than the
rest of us, will agree with me here, I think."

"As for me," said Vincent, "I was scarcely attending to Theodore's
account of his luck at the faro-table, because my mind was so full of
that delicious fellow who walked about the hills in silk stockings, and
admired burning buildings as if they were so many pictures, enjoying
his wine, his macaroons, and his bouquets all the time. In fact, it was
a pleasure and satisfaction to me to see one entertaining character at
last emerging out of the dark, dreadful background of the stories of
this evening, and I should have liked to have seen him as the hero of
some comic drama."

"Ought not the mere suggestion of him to have been enough for us?"
said Lothair. "We Serapion Brethren ought always to remember that it is
our duty to set up, for each other's entertainment and refreshment,
unique characters which we may have come across in life, as a means of
refreshing us after the tales which may have strained our attention."

"A good idea," said Vincent, "and I thoroughly agree with it. Rough
sketches of that description ought to serve as studies for more
finished pictures, which whoever chooses may elaborate after his
liking. Also, they may be considered as being charitable contributions
to the general fund of Serapionish fantasy. And to show that I am in
earnest, I shall at once proceed to describe to you a very great
'Curio' of a man whom I came across in the south of Germany. One day,
in B----, I chanced to be walking in a wood near the town, when I came
upon a number of countrymen hard at work in cutting down a quantity of
thick underwood, and snipping off the branches from the trees on either
side of it. I do not know what made me inquire of them if they