“Eat it!—no—how the devil should I?”
“I thought not,” responded the other, submissively, “I thought not, even a shark will get gorged at last!”
“Eh, what’s that you say?” replied the Quarter-master, roughly, “you don’t expect a man to dine on figs and walnuts, or dried prunes and olives, do you?”
“Dine!” shouted the host, “and have you not dined?”
“No, mille bombes, that I haven’t—as you shall soon see!”
“Alle Gute Geisten loben den Hernn!” said the host, blessing himself, “An thou be’st the Satanus, I charge thee keep away!”
A shout of laughter from without, prevented the Quartermaster’s reply to this exorcism being heard; while the trumpet sounded suddenly for “boot and saddle.”
With a bottle of wine stuffed in each pocket, the Quartermaster rose from table, and hurried away to join his companions, who had received sudden orders to push forward towards Cassel, and as the bewildered host stood at his window, while the regiment filed past, each officer saluted him politely, as they cried out in turn, “Adieu, Monsieur! my compliments to the braten”—“the turkey was delicious”—“the salmi perfect”—“the capon glorious”—“the venison a chef-d’ouvre!” down to the fat Quarter-master, who, as he raised a flask to his lips, and shook his head reproachfully, said, “Ah! you old screw, nothing better than nuts and raisins to give a hungry man for his dinner!” And so they disappeared from the Platz, leaving mine host in a maze of doubt and bewilderment, which it took many a day and night’s meditation to solve to his own conviction.
Though I cannot promise myself that my reader will enjoy this story as much as I did, I could almost vouch for his doing so, if he heard it from the host of the “Reuten Krantz” himself, told with the staid gravity of German manner, and all the impressive seriousness of one who saw in the whole adventure, nothing ludicrous whatever, but only a most unfair trick, that deserved the stocks, or the pillory.
He was indeed a character in his way, his whole life had only room for three or four incidents, about, and around which, his thoughts revolved, as on an axis, and whose impression was too vivid to admit of any occurrence usurping their place. When a boy, he had been in the habit of acting as guide to the “Wartburg” to his father’s guests—for they were a generation of innkeepers, time out of mind, and even yet, he spoke of those days with transport.