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 make his way in the world, these dear girls can always be useful in one fashion or another; never mind, if they repel your passion; at any rate, they are not offended with your declaration of it, and only look upon you with more favourable eyes in consequence of your misfortune.  As for Lischen, I told her such a pathetic story of my life (a tale a great deal more romantic than that here narrated,—­ for I did not restrict myself to the exact truth in that history, as in these pages I am bound to do), that I won the poor girl’s heart entirely, and, besides, made considerable progress in the German language under her instruction.  Do not think me very cruel and heartless, ladies; this heart of Lischen’s was like many a town in the neighbourhood in which she dwelt, and had been stormed and occupied several times before I came to invest it; now mounting French colours, now green and yellow Saxon, now black and white Prussian, as the case may be.  A lady who sets her heart upon a lad in uniform must prepare to change lovers pretty quickly, or her life will be but a sad one.