but to go for the bones again. They were now
growing scarce, and only a few fragments fill the reliquary in which at
length all that is left of my revered friend (if after this lapse of time I
may call him so) reposes.

I have been fortunate in securing a relic, not exactly of CAROLO, but of
the time at or about which he lived. It is a piece of tapestry, on which
fingers long since dust have worked a sketch of the Emperor going to his
bath. Considering its age, the tapestry is in remarkably fresh condition.
The old Hebrew trader, whom for a consideration I induced to part with it,
said he would not charge any more on that account; which I thought very
considerate. He also said he might be able to get me some more pieces. But
this, I think, will do to go on with.

But if there be nothing left of CAROLO MAGNO, there still is the city he
loved, in which he lived and died. Here is the Kaiserquelle, bubbling out
of Buechel in which, centuries ago, he laved his lordly limbs. Going down
into my bath this morning I observed in the dim light the imprint of a
footstep on the marble stair.

"That might have been CHARLEMAGNE'S," I said to YAHKOB, my bath attendant.

"_Ja wohl_," said YAHKOB, nodding in his friendly way, and, going out, he
presently returned with a hot towel.

That did not seem to follow naturally upon my observation, which was,
indeed, born of idle fancy. (I know very well C.'s death eventuated long
prior to the building of the stately colonnade that fronts the present
baths, and that therefore the footprint is illusory.) I am growing used to
a certain irrelevancy in YAHKOB's conversation. My German is of the date of
CHARLEMAGNE, and is no more understood here than is the Greek of SOCRATES
in the streets of Athens. YAHKOB was especially told off for my service
because he thoroughly understood and talked English. He says, "Ye-es" and
"Ver well." But when I offer a chance remark he, three times out of five,
nods intelligently, bolts off and brings me something back--a comb and
brush, a newspaper, but oftenest, a hot towel. Once, when I asked him
whether there were two posts a day to London, he lugged in an arm-chair.

I get on better with WILLIAM. WILLIAM is a rubber--not of whist, _bien
entendu_, but of men. In build WILLIAM is pear-shaped, the upper part of
him, where you would expect to find the stalk, broadening out into a
perpetual smile. He has lived in the Baths twenty-three years, and yet his
gaiety is n