WHOSE END RECONCILES OUR HERO WITH ITS BEGINNING.
Mr. Schnackenberger's howling had (as the waiter predicted) gradually
died away, and he was grimly meditating on his own miseries, to which
he had now lost all hope of seeing an end before daylight, when the
sudden rattling of a key at the yard door awakened flattering hopes in
his breast. It proved to be the waiter, who came to make a gaol
delivery--and on letting him out said, 'I am commissioned by the
gentlemen to secure your silence;' at the same time putting into his
hand a piece of gold.
'The d----l take your gold!' said Mr. Schnackenberger: 'is this the
practice at your house--first to abuse your guests, and then have the
audacity to offer them money?'
'Lord, protect us!' said the waiter, now examining his face, 'is it you?
but who would ever have looked for you in such a dress as this? The
gentlemen took you for one of the police. Lord! to think what a trouble
you'll have had!'
And it now came out, that a party of foreigners had pitched upon Mr.
Jeremiah's room as a convenient one for playing at hazard and some other
forbidden games; and to prevent all disturbance from the police, had
posted their servants, who spoke not a word of German, as sentinels at
the door.
'But how came you to let my room for such a purpose?'
'Because we never expected to see you to-night; we had heard that the
gentleman in the dreadnought had been taken up at the theatre, and
committed. But the gentlemen are all gone now; and the room's quite at
your service.'
Mr. Schnackenberger, however, who had lost the first part of the night's
sleep from suffering, was destined to lose the second from pleasure: for
the waiter now put into his hands the following billet: 'No doubt you
must have waited for me to no purpose in the passages of the theatre:
but alas! our firmest resolutions we have it not always in our power to
execute; and on this occasion, I found it quite impossible consistently
with decorum to separate myself from my attendants. Will you therefore
attend the hunt to-morrow morning? there I hope a better opportunity
will offer.'
It added to his happiness on this occasion that the princess had
manifestly not detected him as the man in the dreadnought.