m your friend," proceeded Pranken calmly. "I cannot approve of
what you have done to provoke such a publication."

"Be brief, I've already heard sermonizing enough to-day."

"Herr Sonnenkamp, I always go counter to the public sentiment; I
respect you, notwithstanding, and I love your daughter. I am almost
glad that I can show you by a sacrifice how my intention----"

"Herr von Pranken, you do not know what you are doing. Your friends,
your family----"

"I know the whole. Pooh! the virtuous people may let the stones alone
which they would willingly throw at us. Whoever merely winks with the
eye shall receive my challenge."

"I admire your courage, but I cannot take advantage of it."

"Not take advantage of it! You have no right to decline it. I am your
son as well as Roland; I stand by you, and now it shall be shown who
has genuine nobility and bravery. I admire you--but we'll drop this
now. Has Roland got back yet?"

"No."

"Then he has gone with the Ensign to the dinner. I will go for him."

Sonnenkamp looked at him in amazement as he drove off; he could not
comprehend it. He was now alone again. He mentally accompanied the
messengers he had sent round the city, and out to the pleasure-grounds.
His thought went out in search of Roland, but did not find him, any
more than the messengers did. Roland had gone with the Cabinetsrath's
son, as Pranken had conjectured, to the military club-house, where a
number of the garrison officers, after the laborious review of the
forenoon, had ordered a dinner. There was a great deal of merriment and
drinking, and they drank the young American's health. Roland was one of
the liveliest among them. There came in a straggling guest, and cried,
out in the midst of the uproar,--

"Have you heard? The slave-trader has been caught with a paper lasso."

"What's to pay?" was, called out.

The new-comer read out of the paper:--

"A proposal, with all due deference, for a coat of arms and a device
for the ennobled slave-trader and slave-murderer, James Henry
Sonnenkamp, alias Banfield, of Louisiana.

"It would give us peculiar satisfaction to run a parallel between the
young nobility in the two hemispheres; to live on the labor of others
is their motto; 'thou art born to do nothing,' say the young nobility
of the Old as well as of the New World. The Americans have also a
superstitious belief that there is some peculiar honor in being
ennobled. Not because we share in this belie