And, at every word he spoke, he continued to step back towards a bell that lay upon the table.
“Basta,” said Mr. Schnackenberger, taking the bell out of his hands. “Mr. Mayor, I’m just the man in the dreadnought. And I’ve a question to ask you, Mr. Mayor; and I thought it was rather long to wait until morning; so I took the liberty of coming for an answer to-night; and I’d think myself particularly obliged to you for it now:---Upon what authority do you conceive yourself entitled to commit me, an innocent man, and without a hearing, to an abominable hole of a dungeon? I have not murdered the guard, Mr. Mayor: but I troubled him for his regimental coat, that I might gain admittance to your worship: and I left him the dreadnought in exchange.
“The dreadnought?” said the Mayor. “Aye: now this very dreadnought it was, Sir, that compelled me (making a low bow) to issue my warrant for your apprehension.” And it then came out, that in a list of stolen goods recently lodged with the magistrates a dreadnought was particularly noticed: and Mr. Mayor having seen a man enter the theatre in an article answering to the description, and easily identified by a black cross embroidered upon the back, was obliged by his duty to have him arrested; more especially as the wearer had increased the suspicion against himself by concealing his face.
This explanation naturally reconciled Mr. Schnackenberger to the arrest: and as to the filthy dungeon, that admitted of a still simpler apology, as it seemed that the town afforded no better.
“Why then, Mr. Mayor,—as things stand, it seems to me that in the point of honour I ought to be satisfied: and in that case I still consider myself your prisoner, and shall take up my quarters for this night in your respectable mansion.”
“But no!” thought Mr. Mayor: “better let a rogue escape, than keep a man within my doors that may commit a murder on my body.” So he assured Mr. Schnackenberger—that he had accounted in the most satisfactory manner for being found in possession of the dreadnought; took down the name of the old clothesman from whom it was hired; and lighting down his now discharged prisoner, he declared, with a rueful attempt at smiling, that it gave him the liveliest gratification on so disagreeable an occasion to have made so very agreeable an acquaintance.
CHAPTER XVIII.
Misery acquaints Mr. Schnackenberger with strange bed-fellows.
When Mr. Schnackenberger returned home from his persecutions, he found the door of the Double-barreled Gun standing wide open: and, as he had observed a light in his own room, he walked right up stairs without disturbing the sleeping waiter. But to his great astonishment, two gigantic fellows were posted outside the door; who, upon his affirming that he must be allowed to enter his own room, seemed in some foreign and unintelligible language to support the negative of that proposition. Without further scruple or regard to their menacing gestures, he pressed forwards to the chamber door; but immediately after felt himself laid hold of by the two fellows—one at his legs, the other at his head—and, spite of his most indignant protests, carried down stairs into the yard. There he was tumbled into a little depôt for certain four-footed animals—with whose golden representative he had so recently formed an acquaintance no less intimate;—and, the height of the building not allowing of his standing upright, he was disposed to look back with sorrow to the paradise lost of his station upon the back of the quiet animal whom he had ridden on the preceding day. Even the dungeon appeared an elysium in comparison with his present lodgings, where he felt the truth of the proverb brought home to him—that it is better to be alone than in bad company.
Unfortunately, the door being fastened on the outside, there remained nothing else for him to do than to draw people to the spot by a vehement howling. But the swine being disturbed by this unusual outcry, and a general uproar taking place among the inhabitants of the stye, Mr. Schnackenberger’s single voice, suf-
