Could I only guess at the part I am performing, thought I, and I might manage to keep up the illusion; but my attention was so entirely engrossed by fencing off all his threats, that I could find out nothing.  At last, as night drew near, the thought that we were approaching Strasbourg rallied my spirits, suggesting an escape from all pursuit, as well as the welcome prospect of getting rid of my present torturer, who, whenever I awoke from a doze, reverted to our singular meeting with a pertinacity that absolutely seemed like malice.

“As I am aware that this is your first visit to Strasbourg,” said the courier, “perhaps I can be of service to you in recommending a hotel.  Put up, I advise you, at the ’Bear’—­a capital hotel, and not ten minutes’ distance from the theatre.”

I thanked him for the counsel; and, rejoicing in the fact that my prototype, whoever he might be, was unknown in the city, began to feel some little hope of getting through this scrape, as I had done so many others.

“They have been keeping the ‘Huguenots’ for your arrival, and all Strasbourg is impatient for your coming.”

“Indeed!” said I, mumbling something meant to be modest.  “Who the devil am I, then, to cause all this fracas?  Heaven grant, not the new ‘prefect,’ or the commander of the forces.”

“I am told the ‘Zauberflotte’ is your favourite opera?”

“I can’t say that I ever heard it—­that is, I mean that I could say—­well got up.”

Here I floundered on having so far forgot myself as to endanger every thing.

“How very unfortunate!  Well, I hope you will not long have as much to say.  Meanwhile, here we are—­this is the ‘Bear.’”

We rattled into the ample porte cochere of a vast hotel—­the postillion cracking his enormous whip, and bells ringing on every side, as if the crown prince of Russia had been the arrival, and not a poor sub. in the __th.

The courier jumped out, and running up to the landlord, whispered a few words in his ear, to which the other answered by a deep “ah, vraiment!” and then saluted me with an obsequiousness that made my flesh quake.

“I shall make ‘mes hommages’ in the morning,” said the courier, as he drove off at full speed to deliver his despatches, and left me to my own devices to perform a character, without even being able to guess what it might be.  My passport, too, the only thing that could throw any light upon the affair, he had taken along with him, promising to have it vised, and save me any trouble.

Of all my difficulties and puzzling situations in life, this was certainly the worst; for however often my lot had been to personate another, yet hitherto I had had the good fortune to be aware of what and whom I was performing.  Now I might be any body from Marshal Soult to Monsieur Scribe; one thing only was certain, I must be a “celebrity.”  The confounded pains and trouble they were taking to receive me, attested that fact, and left me to the