the North-pole are sitting with their hands folded in their laps doing nothing. Another glass of beer, Grammelin." Three things are to be remarked from this scene at the ale-house. Firstly, that Lawyer Rein trusted as much to his invention, as to the newspaper, for the information he gave the people. Secondly that the Rahnstädt artisans were not quite well enough educated for newspapers to be properly understood by them, and thirdly, that people are apt to be rather indifferent to that which does not come home to their own stomachs. But it was to come nearer them now. One day the post from Berlin did not arrive, so the Rahnstädters crowded round the post-office, and asked each other what it meant. The grooms who had come to fetch the letter-bags for the country places wondered whether they ought to wait or not. In fact the only man who was perfectly satisfied with the state of affairs was the post-master, who was standing at his own door, twirling his thumbs. He said that during the thirty years he had held the office of post-master he had never had such a pleasant time of leisure at that hour as he was then enjoying. Next day, instead of the little boys, the subscribers to the newspapers came themselves, and instead of the grooms, the squires rode into Rahnstädt to ask for their letters; but that did not help them much, for the post did not arrive that day either, and it began to be whispered that Berlin had also risen. One man told one story and another gave a different version, each vouching for the truth of his own. Old Düsing, the potter, said that he had heard the distant roar of cannon all morning, and everyone believed him although Berlin was nearly a hundred and twenty miles from Rahnstädt. His neighbour Hagen the carpenter was the only man who doubted, and he said: "I made the noise of cannon, for I was hacking up some wood in my yard all morning."--The post arrived on the third day, but not from Berlin; it only came from Oranienburg, and with it a man who could tell them all they wanted to know, as he had just come from Berlin. The only pity was that he had talked so hard the whole time he had been travelling that he had no voice left when he reached Rahnstädt. He was a candidate for the ministry, and was born in the neighbourhood, so the Rahnstädters plied him with egg-flip in hopes of making him speak. He drank a great deal of the flip, but all in vain, he could only touch his throat and chest, and shake his head sadly. He then tried to go away. Now that was a stupid thing of him to do, for the Rahnstädters had not come to the post-office to look about them and hear no news. They would not let him pass, and he had to make up his mind to describe the revolution in Berlin as best he could, helping himself out by means of signs. He showed them that barricades were erected in the streets, naturally only by signs, otherwise the police would have been down upon him. He shouldered his stick like a musket,