Sire, I am a German by birth, and have been in your country too short a time to be able to entertain you with a Persian tale or an amusing story of sultans and viziers. You must, therefore, permit me to tell you a story of my native land. Sad to say, our stories are not always as elevated as yours--that is, they do not deal with sultans or kings, nor with viziers and pashas, that are called ministers of justice or finance, privy-counsellors, and the like, but they treat very modestly (soldiers sometimes excepted) of persons outside of official life.
In the southern part of Germany lies the town of Gruenwiesel, where I was born and bred. It is a town identical with its neighbors; in its centre a small marketplace with a town-pump, on one corner a small old town-hall, while built around the square were the houses of the justice of the peace and the well-to-do merchants, and, in a few narrow streets that opened out of the square, lived the rest of the citizens. Everybody knew everybody else; every one knew all that was going on; and if the minister, or the mayor, or the doctor had an extra dish on the table, the whole town would know of it before dinner was over. On afternoons, the wives went out to coffee parties, as we call them, where, over strong coffee and sweet cakes, they gossiped of the great events of the day, coming to the conclusion that the minister must have invested in a lottery ticket and won an unchristian amount of money, that the mayor was open to a bribe, and that the apothecary paid the doctor well to write costly prescriptions. You may therefore imagine, Sire, how unpleasant it was for an orderly town like Gruenwiesel, when a man came there of whom nothing was known--not even where he came from, what he wanted there, or on what he lived. The mayor, to be sure, had seen his passport, a paper that every one is compelled to have in our country----
"Is it, then, so unsafe on the street," interrupted the sheik, "that you must have a firman from your sultan in order lo protect yourselves from robbers?"
No, Sire, (replied the slave); these passports do not protect us from thieves, but are only a regulation by which the identity of the holder is every-where established. Well, the mayor had investigated this strange man's passport and at a gathering at the doctor's house had said that it had been found all right from Berlin to Gruenwiesel, but there must be some cheat in it, as the man was a suspicious-looking character. The mayor's opinion being entitled to great weight in Gruenwiesel, it is no wonder that from that time forth the stranger was looked upon with suspicion. And his course of life was not adapted to change this opinion of my countrymen. The stranger rented an entire house that had formerly been unoccupied, had a whole wagon full of singular furniture--such as stoves, ranges, frying-pans, and the like--put in there, and lived there alone by himself. Yes, he even cooked for himself; and not a single soul entered his house, with the exception of an old man living in Gruenwiesel, who made purchases for him of bread, meat, and vegetables. Still, even this old man was only allowed to step inside the door, where he was always met by the stranger, who relieved him of his bundles.
I was ten years of age when this man came to our town, and I can to-day recall the uneasiness which his presence caused, as clearly as though it had all happened yesterday. He did not come in the afternoon, like the other men, to the bowling alley; nor did he visit the inn in the evening, to discuss the news over a pipe of tobacco. It was in vain that, one after another, the mayor, the 'squire, the doctor, and the minister invited him to dinner or to lunch; he always excused himself. Thus it was that some believed him crazy; others took him to be a Jew; while a third party firmly insisted that he was a magician or sorcerer.
I grew to be eighteen, twenty years old, and still this man passed under the name of "the strange gentleman." There came a day, however, on which some fellows came to our town leading a number of strange animals. They were a rough lot of vagrants, who had a camel that would kneel, a bear that danced, some dogs and monkeys looking very comical in clothes and playing all sorts of tricks. These vagrants generally go through the town, stopping at all the cross streets and squares, making a horrible tumult with a small drum and fife, compelling their animals to dance and perform tricks, and then collect money in the houses. But the band, which was now exhibiting in Gruenwiesel, was distinguished above others of its class by the presence of a monster orang-outang, nearly as large as a human being, which walked on two legs, and could perform all manner of clever tricks. This dog-and-ape-troupe stopped before the house of the strange gentleman. At the sound of the fife and drum, the latter appeared at the dust-dimmed window, looking rather displeased; but after a time his face lighted up, and, to everybody's surprise, he opened the window, looked out, and laughed heartily at the tricks of the orang-outang, and even gave such a large silver coin to the show that the whole town spoke of it.
On the following day these vagrants left the place. The camel carried a large number of baskets in which the dogs and monkies sat demurely, while the men and the big ape walked behind the camel. They had hardly been gone an hour, however, when the strange gentleman sent to the post, and ordered, to the astonishment of the postmaster, a carriage with post-horses, and shortly drove through the same gate, out on the same road that had been taken by the band of men and monkeys. The whole town was vexed because it could not be learned where he was bound. Night had set in before the strange gentleman returned to the gate. But another person sat in the wagon with him, who pressed his hat down over his face, and had bound up his mouth and ears in a silk handkerchief. The gate-keeper held it to be his duty to question the other stranger, and to ask him for his passport; he answered, however, very roughly, muttering away in a quite unintelligible language.
"It is my nephew," said the strange gentleman, pleasantly, to the gate-keeper, as he pressed some silver coin into his hand; "it is my nephew, who does not at present understand very much German. He was just now cursing in his own dialect at our being stopped here."
"Well, if he is your nephew," replied the gate-keeper, "of course a pass is not necessary. He will probably lodge with you?"
"Certainly," said the strange gentleman, "and will most likely remain here some time."