wn slender pocket-money
to induce him to tell stories. I was not always successful, for the old
man had morose moods, when he spoke little. At other times he would tell
us his own experiences, and his life had not lacked variety. He had been
in Paris at the time of the Revolution, as servant to a Danish officer
of high rank, and his description "how the fine gentlemen all rode in an
old butcher's cart to have their heads chopped off," left nothing to the
imagination. "My Baron was once near going himself to the 'Gartine,'
or whatever they call it," he told me one day when he was especially
talkative; "but he got well out of it. He was one that could turn the
heads of the women, and it was a woman got him safely out of the city."

Mahlmann sat on the bench before the door and stretched his skinny hands
to the sun. About his shoulders he had a ragged coat which had once
been red, but was now a coat of many colors. It was so hot that I
took shelter in the shadow of the doorway, but the chilly old man was
shivering. I had brought him a great piece of cake and now offered it to
him. He slowly reached for it, and slowly ate it up.

"That's like what I used to get in Paris. Dear me! My Baron was a
handsome man, and for my age, I must have been about fifteen, I was a
sharp lad--only I couldn't rightly understand their French lingo, which
put me out. But I understood the affair of the little Mamsell well
enough. She lived opposite; her father was a grocer and she helped in
the shop. At first we didn't buy anything there, till a long-legged
Englishman told my Baron that this grocer kept a fine Hungarian wine. It
was out of the King's wine-cellar and he wasn't drinking any more wine
because he had gone to the 'Gartine/ And a few sensible people had
divided the wine, which was only right, and it was to be had very cheap.
Then I went over and bought some. Mamsell Manon was in the shop, and
laughed till she cried over my way of speaking. Then I got angry, and
when I brought my Baron the wine I said that I wasn't going again to
that stupid Mamsell who couldn't even understand German. The next day my
master was for sending me again, but I rebelled. 'Herr Baron,' I said,
'you can give me the whip because I'm only a servant, but I won't go
again to that silly girl opposite, and if you make me I'll accuse you to
the authorities of being an aristocrat. We're all free and equal now, I
can understand that much French, and I'll be sorry if yo