rs were to me, and that I was much better here than
crawling under an odious tent with a parcel of tipsy soldiers, or going
the night-rounds or rising long before daybreak for drill.

The delirium of Mr. Fakenham gave me a hint, and I determined forthwith
to GO MAD. There was a poor fellow about Brady's Town called 'Wandering
Billy,' whose insane pranks I had often mimicked as a lad, and I
again put them in practice. That night I made an attempt upon Lischen,
saluting her with a yell and a grin which frightened her almost out of
her wits; and when anybody came I was raving. The blow on the head had
disordered my brain; the doctor was ready to vouch for this fact. One
night I whispered to him that I was Julius Caesar, and considered him
to be my affianced wife Queen Cleopatra, which convinced him of my
insanity. Indeed, if Her Majesty had been like my Aesculapius, she must
have had a carroty beard, such as is rare in Egypt.

A movement on the part of the French speedily caused an advance on our
part. The town was evacuated, except by a few Prussian troops, whose
surgeons were to visit the wounded in the place; and, when we were well,
we were to be drafted to our regiments. I determined that I never would
join mine again. My intention was to make for Holland, almost the only
neutral country of Europe in those times, and thence to get a passage
somehow to England, and home to dear old Brady's Town.

If Mr. Fakenham is now alive, I here tender him my apologies for my
conduct to him. He was very rich; he used me very ill. I managed to
frighten away his servant who came to attend him after the affair of
Warburg, and from that time would sometimes condescend to wait upon the
patient, who always treated me with scorn; but it was my object to
have him alone, and I bore his brutality with the utmost civility and
mildness, meditating in my own mind a very pretty return for all his
favours to me. Nor was I the only person in the house to whom the worthy
gentleman was uncivil. He ordered the fair Lischen hither and thither,
made impertinent love to her, abused her soups, quarrelled with her
omelettes, and grudged the money which was laid out for his maintenance;
so that our hostess detested him as much as, I think, without vanity,
she regarded me.

For, if the truth must be told, I had made very deep love to her during
my stay under her roof; as is always my way with women, of whatever
age or degree of beauty. To a man who has to