“He has found one,” I said, shaking the landlord by the hand, “to whom he has been more than a father, and who will never forget your kindness to him. I thank God that I am now in a situation to say, he shall never at least know what want is again.” “Well, well,” said the landlord, “that is all very well. But you had better come into the house and talk it out there. We are just going to dinner, and there’s as good a chowder as ever was made. He told my girl he couldn’t eat just now, but he’s got his appetite back now, I guess.” We went in; and I sat down with them to their plain meal with more satisfaction than if I had been invited to a prince’s table. Although my good old friend was exceedingly anxious to hear all my own adventures since we parted, I contrived to make him tell all that had occurred to him, which amounted to little more than what I have already stated. He had been detained by the Austrians, he said, for nearly two months, had been sent to Milan, and put in prison there, but in other respects had been well treated, and at length liberated, on its being made clear that he was a French emigrant with no political character. He hurried through the details, in order to get at my history, and then said, with a look of parental affection, “But now tell me, my dear Louis, what has happened to you since we met last? How comes that scar upon your cheek? Where have you been staying? And why are you in such deep mourning?” The last words sent all the color from my cheek. I could feel the blood rush away as if to fill my heart too full, and I shook my head sadly, saying, “Do not ask me about that just now.” I then related to him all that had occurred previous to my arrival in Hamburgh; how, after I had shot the man who was going to murder him, I had turned back to assist Lavater; how I had been knocked down and trodden under feet by the Austrian soldiers, and afterward carried to the hospital; I then told him that I had suffered from poverty as well as himself, and that I had begged my way to the north of Germany. “That is all over now,” I added, “and I trust that we shall never know such days again.” “Well, you two have had a pretty hard life of it,” said the good landlord—for we had been speaking in English all the time, so that he understood us. “You were great people in your own country, I dare say; and that made it all the harder for you.” “Not very great people,” I replied, “but very comfortable, and very happy, till we were driven forth for no fault of our own.”