ed by stories of spies and infernal devices. The box contained six
cannon balls and a German captain's uniform!

Ah, sir, how many times since then, dreaming in my peaceful bed of the
things that immediately ensued, have I wakened to find my extremities
icy cold and my body bathed in an icy moisture! Yet, in my waking hours,
whene'er I seek mentally to reconstruct those hideous scenes I marvel
that I should preserve so confused, so inchoate a recollection of it
all, though from the picture certain episodes stand out in all their
original and terrifying vividness.

Again do I hear the maledictions of the frenzied populace; again do I
behold their menacing faces, their threatening gestures. Again, with
pitying and sympathetic eyes, do I see myself hurried through the
streets, a breathless prisoner, hatless, coatless--for my coat came away
in the hands of the whiskered wretch in the blouse--deprived through
forcible confiscation of my translating manual, by means of which I
might yet have made all clear to my accusers, and still wearing on my
sorely trampled feet the parting gift of Great-Aunt Paulina. Again am I
carried for arraignment before a mixed tribunal in a crowded room of
some large building devoted in ordinary times, I presume, to civic
purposes.

The trial scene--how clearly do I envisage that! Come with me, Your
Excellency, and look on it: Zeno the Great is there, writhing impotently
in the grasp of his captors and, at such intervals as his voice can be
heard, hoarsely importuning me to make all clear. The gendarmes are
there. The troopers are there in full panoply of lethal equipment and
carnage-dealing implements of war. The mayor is there, as before, but
has lost his high hat. Hundreds of the vociferating citizens are there.
And finally I--Roscoe T. Fibble--am there also, still preserving, I may
fondly trust, such dignity, such poise, such an air of conscious
rectitude as is possible, considering gyves on one's wrists, no covering
for one's head, and a pair of embroidered bedroom slippers on one's
feet.

The porter, with circumstantial particularity, re-enacts his attempt to
remove the damning black box and his encounter with my hapless
companion. The mayor publicly embraces him. The chief of the gendarmes
proves by actual demonstration that the German captain's uniform is a
perfect fit for Zeno the Great. The mayor kisses him on both cheeks. The
commanding officer of the military squad makes the discove