r engage in such a conflict.

By long dwelling on the thought of my noble devotion, and how it would
read when I was dead and gone, I had extinguished within my heart all
desire for other distinction, speculating only on what strange and
ingenious theories men would spin for the secret clew to my motives.
"True," they would say, "Potts never cared for Harpar. He was not a man
to whom Potts would have attached himself under any circumstances;
they were, as individuals, totally unlike and unsympathetic. How, then,
explain this extraordinary act of self-sacrifice? Was he prompted by
the hope that the iniquities of the Austrian police system would receive
their death-blow from his story, and that the mound that covered him in
the churchyard would be the altar of Liberty to thousands? Or was Potts
one of those enthusiastic creatures only too eager to carry the load of
some other pilgrim in life?"

While I used thus to reason and speculate, I little knew that I had
become a sort of European notoriety. Some Englishwoman, however, some
vagrant tourist, had put me in her book as the half-witted creature who
showed the coins and curiosities at Ambras, and mentioned how, for I
know not how many years, I was never heard to utter a syllable except
on questions of old armor and antiquities. In consequence I was always
asked for by my travelling countrymen, and my peculiarities treated with
all that playful good taste for which tourists are famous. I remember
one day having refused to perform the showman to a British family. I had
a headache, or was sulky, or a fit of rebellion had got hold of me,
but I sauntered out into the grounds and would not see them. In my walk
through a close alley of laurels, I chanced to overhear the stranger
conversing with Hirsch, and making myself the subject of his inquiries;
and, as I listened, I heard Hirsch say that one entire room of the
chateau was devoted to the papers and documents in my case, and that
probably it would occupy a quick reader about twelve months to peruse
them. He added, that as I made no application for a trial myself, nor
any of my friends showed an inclination to bestir themselves about me,
the Government would very probably leave me to live and die where I was.
Thereupon the Briton broke out into a worthy fit of indignant eloquence.
He denounced the Hapsburgs and praised the Habeas Corpus; he raved of
the power of England, our press, our public opinion, our new frigates.
He sa