What did he on foot in those packed, roaring thoroughfares, where the assassin's dagger or revolver might play its part so safely? Perhaps, like the Third Napoleon, whose peacock bubble of Empire might now have reached the point of bursting, Count Bismarck believed in his fortunate star....
Ah! what was that round bright object lying on the pavement? P. C. Breagh, still dazed with the magnitude of the thing that had befallen him, stooped and picked, it up.
It was a medal of silver, with the Prussian Eagle enameled in red upon the obverse, and a name which left no doubt as to the identity of P. C. Breagh's rescuer. Upon, the reverse was the inscription: "Fur Rettung aus Gefahr"—"For Saving From Danger." With the date of the 24th June, 1842....
No doubt the Chancellor prized this, the decoration earned at twenty-four for saving his orderly-groom and another private from drowning, when serving as Landwehr cavalry officer with the Stargaard Regiment of Hussars. Well, he should have it back,—but into no hands but his would P. C. Breagh surrender it,—P. C. Breagh, who had been cast out with mockery from the editorial offices of one daily and two evening newspapers, when he had offered—at a rate of astounding cheapness,—to supply their columns with material drawn from the experiences of one who had never previously enjoyed an opportunity of seeing the thing called War.
One Editor had dealt with him drastically, pitching his card into the waste-paper basket, and saying, "No! Get out with you!" A second had whistled up a tube and called down a sub-editor, and said to him, "Look at this!" The third had preached a brief but pithy sermon on presumption and cocksureness, winding up with the intimation that if P. C. Breagh ever found himself at the seat of war and in possession of any experiences worth recording, he might submit them for consideration if he chose.
These men would never know it, but they were profoundly humiliated. At least one of them had lost a half-column, striking the note of personal adventure to the clink of shekels of fine gold. As for Mr. Knewbit ... P. C. Breagh could almost hear him chuckling—had only to shut his eyes to see the poker, sketching out headings on the Coram Street kitchen wall:
"ADVENTURE OF YOUNG ENGLISHMAN.
WAR CORRESPONDENT IN BERLIN.
CRUSHED BY THE CROWD.
RESCUED BY BISMARCK.