"'I should be most happy, sir; but in Prussia it is not allowed to change places.'
"'True, true! How could I forget it? I beg your pardon, sir.'
"'These tamned Frenchmans, they do noting but shatter and talk!' said a fat German sitting opposite to me, opening his mouth for the first time since we had left Liege, but still keeping his eyes shut.
"'You were saying, sir——?' said I, not particularly gratified by the remark.
"'I say noting—I shleep.'
"'Shleep as much as you like, but try not to dream aloud, eh? Or, if you dream, dream in your mother tongue.'
"The German began to snore.
"'Postilion, vorwarts!' shouted the conductor.
"We were off at a gallop. I put my head out of the window to try to get a view of the ruins, but it was vain; they had disappeared behind an angle of the road. At twenty-five minutes to five, not a second later or earlier, we drove into the coach-yard at Aix-la-Chapelle."
At Cologne M. Dumas pauses, and fills a hundred pages with the cathedral, and the legend attaching to it. Most of our readers are probably aware that the above-named church was commenced by an architect whose name has been forgotten, and who procured the design for the building from Satan himself, upon the usual condition of giving a promissory note for his soul. A certain Father Clement, however, a very knowing priest, of whom the arch-tempter stood in almost as great awe as he had ever done of St Dunstan of nose-pulling celebrity, came to the assistance of the builder, and put him up to a stratagem, by which he avoided signing away his spiritual part, although he still obtained possession of the plan for the cathedral. Satan confessed himself outwitted, but prophesied that the building should never be finished, and that its builder's name should not go down to posterity. The latter part of the prediction has been accomplished; but as the present King of Prussia has declared his intention of finishing the work that has been so magnificently begun, it seems probable Beelzebub may prove mistaken in one portion of his prophecy.