As soon as Bräsig had finished his labours, he knocked and battered at the door, and when the postmaster unlocked it and let him out, great drops of perspiration were standing on his forehead.--"Bless me!" cried the post-master, "how ghastly you look! Work that one's unused to is the hardest of all, isn't it?"--He then took the letter and put it in an envelope which he addressed to Mr. von Rambow, and after that he enclosed it in a second envelope addressed to the Mecklenburg Embassy at Paris. Bräsig paid down his sixteen pence, which turned out to be the exact price of the postage, so the letter might now go on its journey at once in the mail cart which was waiting at the door. Whilst he was putting up the letter the post-master sang: "A student of Leipzig, &c. &c.", but when Bräsig was going away he changed his song to: "A weighty despatch old Custine sendeth, to Paris quick his messenger wendeth. The Saxons and Prussians are marching fast, to bombard Mayence and I must at last, capitulate if help comes not, &c. &c."--"You may capitulate as much as you like," said Bräsig, "it's nothing to me; but mind you hold your tongue about what I told you, remember your promise." Our old friend then went home, and besides the happy feeling of having done a good action, he had the pleasant consciousness of having surmounted a great difficulty with no little skill, for he felt not a little triumphant that he had been able to bring Louisa's name into the transaction. Now when any one goes home after having accomplished a good deed of this kind and desires to sun himself in the remembrance of it, he thinks it very hard when instead of meeting with a kind reception, he comes in for a perfect storm of reproaches and scolding. It was so with Bräsig when he entered the parlour where Mrs. Behrens and the little member were sitting. Louisa was not there. Mrs. Behrens was busy lighting the lamp, but the matches would not strike, partly because those Kurz sold were not of the best, and partly because Mrs. Behrens--perhaps from a desire to be economical--was in the habit of putting any broken or headless match back into the box, thus giving a useless match twenty times the amount of enjoyment during its short life that a good one could have. But although it may have been a very pleasant life for the match, it generally succeeded in putting the human being who was trying to strike it into a rage. "There you are at last," cried Mrs. Behrens angrily as she endeavoured to strike a match. "So you've really come home, have you?" trying a second. "You do nothing but gad about the town," another match, "but you always take care to go with your eyes shut"--two matches at once this time--"and your ears too"--another match--"and still you think you know all that's going on"--another match--"but when it comes to the point you know nothing"--three matches at once. Bräsig always treated Mrs. Behrens courteously and showed himself willing to do anything in her service,