and speedily by his appearance, removed
any apprehensions I had felt as to my safety. Nothing could less
resemble the tall port and sturdy bearing of a gendarme, than the
diminutive and dwarfish individual before me. His height could scarcely
have reached five feet, of which the head formed fully a fourth part; and
even this was rendered in appearance still greater by a mass of loosely
floating black hair that fell upon his neck and shoulders, and gave him
much the air of a "black lion" on a sign board. His black frock,
fur-collared and braided--his ill-made boots, his meerschaum projecting
from his breast-pocket, above all, his unwashed hands, and a heavy gold
ring upon his thumb--all made up an ensemble of evidences that showed he
could be nothing but a German. His manner was bustling, impatient, and
had it not been ludicrous, would certainly be considered as insolent to
every one about him, for he stared each person abruptly in the face, and
mumbled some broken expressions of his opinion of them half-aloud in
German. His comments ran on:--"Bon soir, Monsieur," to the host: "Ein
boesewicht, ganz sicher"--"a scoundrel without doubt;" and then added,
still lower, "Rob you here as soon as look at you." "Ah, postillion!
comment va?"--"much more like a brigand after all--I know which I'd take
you for." "Ver fluchte fraw"--"how ugly the woman is." This compliment
was intended for the hostess, who curtsied down to the ground in her
ignorance. At last approaching me, he stopped, and having steadily
surveyed me, muttered, "Ein echter Englander"--"a thorough Englishman,
always eating." I could not resist the temptation to assure him that I
was perfectly aware of his flattering impression in my behalf, though I
had speedily to regret my precipitancy, for, less mindful of the rebuke
than pleased at finding some one who understood German, he drew his chair
beside me and entered into conversation.

Every one has surely felt, some time or other in life, the insufferable
annoyance of having his thoughts and reflections interfered with, and
broken in upon by the vulgar impertinence and egotism of some "bore,"
who, mistaking your abstraction for attention and your despair for
delight, inflicts upon you his whole life and adventures, when your own
immediate destinies are perhaps vacillating in the scale.

Such a doom was now mine! Occupied as I was by the hope of the future,
and my fears lest any impediment to my escape shoul