in the inn; the knavish-looking hostler must
certainly have stolen it from him. He soon overcame his trouble about
the lost money, however, and told the people that, some time or other,
he would show kindness to a stranger, in return for what he had
received.

He wandered on. He had learned what it was to enjoy the kindness and
bounty of poor men, now that he was himself poor and helpless; that was
his best experience.

The world is beautiful and men are good, even if a hostler could not
resist a well-filled purse. With these cheering thoughts, he went on
his way and soon reached the railway-station. Ha had carefully avoided
any of the nearer stations, where he was known and might easily be
traced; he wished, after making a circuit, to take the cars at a
distant point.

Here Roland was accosted, like an old acquaintance, by a man in
worn-out clothes, and with one boot and one old slipper on his feet.

"Good-morning, my dear Baron! good-morning!" cried this shabby-looking
personage, coming close up to him.

It was doubly disagreeable in this fresh morning, after such a night,
to come within the atmosphere of this man so impregnated with brandy,
who was excessively confiding in his manner towards Roland. A railway
official, in the most polite manner, begged the half-drunken fellow to
leave the traveller in peace; he nodded knowingly to Roland from a
distance, as if there were some important secret between them.
Roland learned that the man belonged to a respected family of the
nobility: his relations had wished to help him, and had made him an
annual allowance, but it was of no use. Now he was boarding with a
baggage-master, and his whole amusement was in the railroad. Every one
showed him due respect, because he was a baron, and very much to be
pitied.

Roland shrank from the man as if he were a ghost. The excitement of the
night, and of all which he had been through, was still affecting
him, yet the thought was present to him how strange it was that a
half-witted, half-intoxicated man should be so respectfully treated,
simply because he was a baron.

Roland succeeded in borrowing money for his journey from the restorator
at the station, with whom he left his diamond ring in pawn. He bought a
ticket for the university-town, and at last took his seat in the car,
where he could not refrain from saying to a fellow-passenger,--

"Ah! it is good that we are off."

His neighbor stared at him; he could not know how