in through a
cellar grating; on the table a candle was flickering as it expired, and
round the table in front of each chair a long-shaped bottle with a
label on its neck. The company was gone! But whither and how?

Thoughtfully I walked round the long table. The sample bottles stood
where each one had sat. Frau Rosa's at the head of the board. Surely it
couldn't have been a dream? No, one does not dream so vividly--besides,
my headache from that bump! But I had little time left for reflections.
I heard keys rattling at the door--it opened slowly, and my old friend
of the evening before came in wishing me good morning. 'It has just
struck six, sir,' said he, 'and I have come as you desired to let you
out. Well, how did you sleep?' 'As well as one can upon a chair--pretty
fairly, thank you.' 'Sir,' cried he, anxiously examining me, 'something
strange happened to you last night--you look disturbed and pale, and
your voice trembles.' 'Nonsense,' said I, 'what could have happened to
me? I am only sleepy.' 'I am not so blind as you think,' said he, 'and,
besides, the night watchman came to me early this morning and told me
that as he passed by the cellar between twelve and one last night he
heard all kinds of riot and revelry within there.' 'Pure imagination,'
said I, 'I'm given to talking loud, and even to singing, in my sleep
sometimes.'

'Never again,' said he, 'do I leave a gentleman alone in the cellar at
night. The Lord knows what awful things he has not heard and seen. I
wish you a most respectful good morning, sir.'

'But the thing that best would win it
Is the Lady Fair within it.'

Remembering these words of the joyous Bacchus as being particularly
applied to Bremen and to my own case, I hurried, after I had slept a
few hours, to bid good morning to the lovely Adelgunde. But she
received me with more than wonted coldness, and when I whispered some
affectionate words to her she fairly laughed aloud, and turning her
back said, 'Go, and have your sleep well out, sir, first.' A friend,
who was sitting at the piano in another corner of the room, followed me
as I turned away, and taking my hand said, 'Dear Brother, it is all
over with your love for her--put all thoughts of it out of your head.'
'I could see as much,' I answered; and then, _sotto voce_, 'The Devil
take every pretty pair of eyes and every rosy mouth in the world!' 'But
tell me,' says my friend, 'is it true that you stayed the whole night
dr