officer, and then both relapsed into
silence.

The silence was not broken between Berlin and Potsdam, through which
place the Chevalier passed as His Majesty was reviewing his guards
there, and the regiments of Bulow, Zitwitz, and Henkel de Donnersmark.
As the Chevalier passed His Majesty, the King raised his hat and said,
'Qu'il ne descende pas: je lui souhaite un bon voyage.' The Chevalier de
Balibari acknowledged this courtesy by a profound bow.

They had not got far beyond Potsdam, when boom! the alarm cannon began
to roar.

'It is a deserter,' said the officer.

'Is it possible?' said the Chevalier, and sank back into his carriage
again.

Hearing the sound of the guns, the common people came out along the road
with fowling-pieces and pitchforks, in hopes to catch the truant. The
gendarmes seemed very anxious to be on the look-out for him too. The
price of a deserter was fifty crowns to those who brought him in.

'Confess, sir,' said the Chevalier to the police officer in the carriage
with him, 'that you long to be rid of me, from whom you can get nothing,
and to be on the look-out for the deserter who may bring you in fifty
crowns? Why not tell the postilion to push on? You may land me at the
frontier and get back to your hunt all the sooner.' The officer told
the postillion to get on; but the way seemed intolerably long to
the Chevalier. Once or twice he thought he heard the noise of horse
galloping behind: his own horses did not seem to go two miles an hour;
but they DID go. The black and white barriers came in view at last, hard
by Bruck, and opposite them the green and yellow of Saxony. The Saxon
custom-house officers came out.

'I have no luggage,' said the Chevalier.

'The gentleman has nothing contraband,' said the Prussian officers,
grinning, and took their leave of their prisoner with much respect.

The Chevalier de Balibari gave them a Frederic apiece.

'Gentlemen,' said he, 'I wish you a good day. Will you please to go to
the house whence we set out this morning, and tell my man there to send
on my baggage to the "Three Kings" at Dresden?'

Then ordering fresh horses, the Chevalier set off on his journey for
that capital. I need not tell you that _I_ was the Chevalier.

'From the Chevalier de Balibari to Redmond Barry, Esquire, Gentilhomme
Anglais, a l'Hotel des 3 Couronnes, a Dresde en Saxe.

'Nephew Redmond,--This comes to you by a sure hand, no other than Mr.
Lumpit of the English Miss