‘Pardon, _mein Wirth_,’ replied Claude, who pronounced German as badly as the host did French. ‘You know we men who run about the world laugh at everything, and too often let our tongues run faster than our feet.’ ‘And after all,’ observed the Italian, ‘it is doing the young princess no bad turn to prevent her marrying a prince out of place, who is not likely to recover his situation.’ The Flemings spent the few days of their sojourn at Innsbruck in visiting the churches and seeing what was to be seen in the town. The Comtesse de Cernes’s brother was the busiest of the party. On the morning after his arrival he met in a church porch a rather impish-looking boy in the dress of a ‘long-haired page,’ and the two held a brief colloquy. To this stylish page, in whom the rather shapeless Slavonic type of countenance was widened out by smiles of assurance, the gentleman from Flanders delivered a letter, together with a wonderful snuff-box, cut out of a single turquoise, ‘for his mistress to look at.’ On the three remaining days likewise the two met in different spots; the boy restored the snuff-box, and brought some letters written in a fashionable pointed hand, in return for those with which the Fleming had intrusted him. The party were to set out on their southward way at two o’clock on the morning of the 28th of April. The evening of the 27th was overshadowed by clouds, driven by a sharp north-east wind. Notwithstanding the aspects of the weather, the brother of the Comtesse de Cernes, standing in the midst of his little party in their private room, donned his cocked-hat and surtout. ‘Well, Wogan,’ said the comte, ‘if practice makes perfect, you are a professor in the art of effecting escapes. After having burst your way out of Newgate, and been valued at five hundred English guineas (much below your worth of course), and cooled yourself for some hours on the roof of a London house, and reached France safely after all, you ought to be able to abstract a young lady from the careless custody of Heister and his sentinels.’ ‘I shall be ashamed if I fail, after wringing from Prince Sobieski his consent to the attempt, and after his giving me the Grand Vizier’s snuff-box; but I always find that doing things for other people is more difficult than doing them for one’s self.’ ‘I should say she was a clever girl,’ remarked the comte, ‘and her page a clever page.’ ‘I wonder if Jannetton is ready?’ said the comtesse, retiring into the bedroom occupied by the ladies, whence she soon emerged with her sister, who wore her paletot, and was smiling sufficiently to shew two rows of exquisitely white teeth. The comtesse on the contrary seemed somewhat affected. ‘_Adieu, Jannetton, mais au revoir._ There will be no danger to you, and the Archduchess will take care that you join me in Italy.’