n? Why, has he a servant?" asked I.

"He's not exactly like a servant, sir; but a sort of peasant with a
green jacket and a tall hat and leather gaiters, like a Tyrolese."

"Strolling actors, I 'll be sworn," mattered I; "fellows taking a week's
holiday on their way to a new engagement How long have they been here?"

"Came on Monday last in the diligence, and are to remain till the
twentieth; two florins a day they give for everything."

"What nation are they?"

"Germans, sir, regular Germans; never a pipe ont of their mouths, master
and man. I learned all this from his servant, for they have put up a bed
for me in his room."

A sudden thought now struck me: "Why should not Francois give up his bed
to this stranger, and occupy the one in my room?" This arrangement would
suit _me_ better, and it ought to be all the same to Hamlet or Groetz,
or whatever he was. "Just lounge about the door, Francois," said I,
"till he comes back; and when you see him, open the thing to him,
civilly, of course; and if a crown piece, or even two, will help the
negotiation, slip it slyly into his hand. You understand?"

Francois winked like a man who had corrupted customhouse officers in his
time, and even bribed bigger functionaries at a pinch.

"If he's in trade, you know, Francois, just hint that if he sends in
his pack in the course of the evening, the ladies might possibly take a
fancy to something."

Another wink.

"And throw out--vaguely, of course, very vaguely--that we are swells,
but in strict _incog._"

A great scoundrel was Francois; he was a Swiss, and could cheat any
one, and, like a regular rogue, never happier than when you gave him
a mission of deceit or duplicity. In a word, when I gave him his
instructions, I regarded the negotiation as though it were completed,
and now addressed myself to the task of looking after our supper, which,
with national obstinacy, the landlord declared could not be ready
before nine o'clock. As usual, Mrs. Keats had gone to bed immediately
on arriving; but when sending me a "good-night" by her maid, she added,
"that whenever supper was served, Miss Herbert would come down."

We had no sitting-room save the common room of the inn, a long,
low-ceilinged, dreary chamber, with a huge green-tile stove in one
corner, and down the centre a great oak table, which might have served
about forty guests. At one end of this three covers were laid for us,
the napkins enclosed in bone circlets, an