n), all going on at the same time. It is one of
those establishments where every earthly thing that can be eaten
or drunk is offered you; porter, soda water, small beer,
champagne, burgundy, or claret are about all the time, and
everybody is smoking the best Havana cigars every minute."

He had plenty of society, much of it congenial to him. He had given up
playing since his marriage, and was one of the few diplomatists who was
not found at the Homburg gaming-tables, but he had a sufficiency of
sport and joined with the British envoy, Sir Alexander Malet, in taking
some shooting. A couple of years later in contradicting one of the
frequent newspaper reports, that he aimed at supplanting the Minister,
he says:

"My castle in the air is to spend three to five years longer at
Frankfort, then perhaps the same time in Vienna or Paris, then
ten years with glory as Minister, then die as a country
gentleman."

A prospect which has been more nearly fulfilled than such wishes
generally are.

He was for the first year still a member of the Second Chamber and
occasionally appeared in it; his interest in his diplomatic work had,
however, begun to overshadow his pleasure in Parliamentary debate.

"I am thoroughly tired of my life here," he writes in May, 1853,
to his wife from Berlin, "and long for the day of my departure. I
find the intrigues of the House immeasurably shallow and
undignified; if one always lives among them, one deceives oneself
and considers them something wonderful. When I come here from
Frankfort and see them as they really are, I feel like a sober
man who has fallen among drunkards. There is something very
demoralising in the air of the Chambers; it makes the best people
vain without their knowing it."

So quickly has he outgrown his feelings of a year ago: then it was the
intrigues of diplomatists that had seemed to him useless and
demoralising. Now it was Parliamentary debates; in the opinion he formed
at this time he never wavered.

His distaste for Parliamentary life was probably increased by an event
which took place about this time. As so often before in the course of
debate he had a sharp passage of words with Vincke; the latter referred
contemptuously to Bismarck's diplomatic achievements. "All I know of
them is the famous lighted cigar."

Bismarck answered with some angry words and at the close of the sitting
sent a challenge. Four days later a duel with pisto