Charlie Pierrepont was everywhere a great favourite with the other sex; and perhaps there was no species of flirtation in which he was not a skilled hand, and he had carefully studied the whole 'scale of familiarities, the gamut of love,' as he was wont to call it, from a touch of the hand or the elevation of an eyebrow, upward, to the extremity of tenderness; and thus much of his time had been passed pleasantly for some ten years in every garrison town between the Elbe and the Vistula; but he had always come off scot-free, for he was possessed, as we have said, of but his epaulettes and sword, while many of the girls he met were as finished flirts as himself; and some, after a short acquaintance, would show their hands with a laugh, and, as it were, throw up their cards.
'Kellner! let me have a room on the lowest étage that is unoccupied,' said he, as his portmanteaus were carried in by the hausknecht.
'Yes, mein Herr,' replied the oberkellner, or head-waiter.
'Is the young Count Von Frankenburg here—an officer of the Thuringians?'
'Yes; he is now at the table d'hôte. The bell has just rung, so mein Herr is exactly in time for dinner.'
'Very good.'
'This way, mein Herr,' said the waiter, bowing; 'but, though in the Prussian uniform, I think the Herr is an Englishman.'
'How do you know that I am so?'
'Because I myself am one, and I recognized you by your voice.'
And, sooth to say, Charlie was very unlike a German in that respect, and had the pleasantly modulated voice of a well-trained English gentleman, and few voices are more agreeable to listen to.