where would be a set of jolly fellows then?—­ as mute as undertakers at a funeral, I promise you.  I drank my mother’s health that night in a bumper, and lived like a gentleman whilst the money lasted.  She pinched herself to give it me, as she told me afterwards; and Mr. Jowls was very wroth with her.  Although the good soul’s money was very quickly spent, I was not long in getting more; for I had a hundred ways of getting it, and became a universal favourite with the Captain and his friends.  Now, it was Madame von Dose who gave me a Frederic-d’or for bringing her a bouquet or a letter from the Captain; now it was, on the contrary, the old Privy Councillor who treated me with a bottle of Rhenish, and slipped into my hand a dollar or two, in order that I might give him some information regarding the liaison between my captain and his lady.  But though I was not such a fool as not to take his money, you may be sure I was not dishonourable enough to betray my benefactor; and he got very little out of me.  When the Captain and the lady fell out, and he began to pay his addresses to the rich daughter of the Dutch Minister, I don’t know how many more letters and guineas the unfortunate Tabaks Rathinn handed over to me, that I might get her lover back again.  But such returns are rare in love, and the Captain used only to laugh at her stale sighs and entreaties.  In the house of Mynheer Van Guldensack I made myself so pleasant to high and low, that I came to be quite intimate there:  and got the knowledge of a state secret or two, which surprised and pleased my captain very much.  These little hints he carried to his uncle, the Minister of Police, who, no doubt, made his advantage of them; and thus I began to be received quite in a confidential light by the Potzdorff family, and became a mere nominal soldier, being allowed to appear in plain clothes (which were, I warrant you, of a neat fashion), and to enjoy myself in a hundred ways, which the poor fellows my comrades envied.  As for the sergeants, they were as civil to me as to an officer:  it was as much as their stripes were worth to offend a person who had the ear of the Minister’s nephew.  There was in my company a young fellow by the name of Kurz, who was six feet high in spite of his name, and whose life I had saved in some affair of the war.  What does this lad do, after I had recounted to him one of my adventures, but call me a spy and informer, and beg me not to call him du any more, as is the fashion with young men when they are very intimate.  I had nothing for it but to call him out; but I owed him no grudge.  I disarmed him in a twinkling; and as I sent his sword flying over his head, said to him, ’Kurz, did ever you know a man guilty of a mean action who can do as I do now?’ This silenced the rest of the grumblers; and no man ever sneered at me after that.