Fournichon. I see a good chance of it. Look here, Monsieur Bom de Sac, you have, in far too many battles received more than too many wounds to be anything like a match for these young fellows. They have been sharper than you,—so you’ll have to acknowledge yourself beaten, and e’en let them alone. By the time you get outside the door they will be far beyond your reach.
Bom de Sac. You’re right enough there, so I shall keep the whole matter to myself, and wish them a pleasant evening.
Anon.
IN THE LITTLE REPUBLIC.
It was in the smallest Republic of our Continent—Altenet—rich in mines of zinc. It lies, like a tiny wedge, between the great German empire, the small kingdom of Holland, and the still smaller one of Belgium.
Seldom has a stranger set foot here; few know the district even by name; only a single encyclopædia makes mention of it; the atlases have forgotten it,—nay, it has even been forgotten by the political world.
When the separation between Belgium and Holland took place in 1830, the representatives of the various powers could not come to any agreement over this little piece of ground. It was therefore resolved to declare it “neutral territory,” till a later Congress should find a better solution to the problem.
The old schoolmaster of the neighbouring village of Oppenaken always asserted that the learned politicians assembled at the aforesaid Congress had been too drunk to know what they were doing. If his listeners looked at him incredulously, or began to laugh, he would indignantly ask, “Don’t you believe me? Then I’ll prove it!” And then he would fetch an atlas, open it at the map of the Netherlands, and, following with his finger the boundary of our provinces of Limburg and Brabant, continue—“Just look at this line here how it goes—first to the left, then to the right—here crooked, then slanting—then again forward for a bit, then backwards—one minute straight, and then again with a great bend—isn’t it just like the line a tipsy man would take in walking?”
In the year 1866 another European Congress took place; but it seemed as though the gentlemen taking part in it had not recovered from the effects of the drinking bout attributed to them by the Oppenaken schoolmaster, for this time Altenet was forgotten—forgotten for good and all.
