to wrong
conclusions!

Until I listened to the Frau von Wintner, I imagined the German language
somewhat weak in the matter of epithets. She undeceived me on this head,
showing resources of abusive import that would have done credit to a
Homeric hero. Having given me full ten minutes of a strong vocabulary,
she then turned on the waiter, scornfully asking him if, at his time of
life, he ought to have let himself be imposed upon by so palpable and
undeniable a swindler as myself? She clearly showed that there was no
extenuation of his fault, that rogue and vagabond had been written on my
face, and inscribed in my manner; not to mention that I had followed the
well-beaten track of all my fraternity in fraud, and ordered everything
the most costly the house could command. In fact, so strenuously did she
urge this point, and so eager did she seem about enforcing a belief
in her statement, that I almost began to suspect she might suggest an
anatomical examination of me to sustain her case. Had she been even
less eloquent, the audience would still have been with her, for it is
a curious but unquestionable fact that in all little visited localities
the stranger is ungraciously regarded and ill looked on.

Whenever I attempted to interpose a word in my defence, I was overborne
at once. Indeed, public opinion was so decidedly against me, that I felt
very happy in thinking Lynch law was not a Teutonic institution. The
room was now filled with retainers of the inn, strangers, town-folk,
and police, and, to judge by the violence of their gestures and the loud
tones of their voices, one would have pronounced me a criminal of the
worst sort.

"But what is it that he has done? What's his offence?" I heard a voice
say from the crowd, and I fancied his accent was that of a foreigner. A
perfect inundation of vituperative accusation, however, now poured in,
and I could gather no more. The turmoil and uproar rose and fell, and
fell and rose again, till at last, my patience utterly exhausted, I
burst out into a very violent attack on the uncivilized habits of a
people who could thus conduct themselves to a man totally unconvicted of
any offence.

"Well, well, don't give way to passion; don't let temper get the better
of you," said a fat, citizen-like man beside me. "The stranger there has
just paid for what you have had, and all is settled."

I thought I should have fainted as I heard these words. Indeed,
until that instant, I had ne