Then at last he gave me my chance. He half tripped over a little table and his face stuck forward. I got him on the point of the chin, and put every ounce of weight I possessed behind the blow. He crumpled up in a heap and rolled over, upsetting a lamp and knocking a big china jar in two. His head, I remember, lay under the escritoire from which he had taken my passport. I picked up the key and unlocked the door. In one of the gilded mirrors I smoothed my hair and tidied up my clothes. My anger had completely gone and I had no particular ill-will left against Stumm. He was a man of remarkable qualities, which would have brought him to the highest distinction in the Stone Age. But for all that he and his kind were back numbers. I stepped out of the room, locked the door behind me, and started out on the second stage of my travels. CHAPTER VII. Christmastide Everything depended on whether the servant was in the hall. I had put Stumm to sleep for a bit, but I couldn’t flatter myself he would long be quiet, and when he came to he would kick the locked door to matchwood. I must get out of the house without a minute’s delay, and if the door was shut and the old man gone to bed I was done. I met him at the foot of the stairs, carrying a candle. “Your master wants me to send off an important telegram. Where is the nearest office? There’s one in the village, isn’t there?” I spoke in my best German, the first time I had used the tongue since I crossed the frontier. “The village is five minutes off at the foot of the avenue,” he said. “Will you be long, sir?” “I’ll be back in a quarter of an hour,” I said. “Don’t lock up till I get in.” I put on my ulster and walked out into a clear starry night. My bag I left lying on a settle in the hall. There was nothing in it to compromise me, but I wished I could have got a toothbrush and some tobacco out of it. So began one of the craziest escapades you can well imagine. I couldn’t stop to think of the future yet, but must take one step at a time. I ran down the avenue, my feet cracking on the hard snow, planning hard my programme for the next hour. I found the village—half a dozen houses with one biggish place that looked like an inn. The moon was rising, and as I approached I saw that there was some kind of a store. A funny little two-seated car was purring before the door, and I guessed this was also the telegraph office. I marched in and told my story to a stout woman with spectacles on her nose who was talking to a young man. “It is too late,” she shook her head. “The Herr Burgrave knows that well. There is no connection from here after eight o’clock. If the matter is urgent you must go to Schwandorf.” “How far is that?” I asked, looking for some excuse to get decently out of the shop. “Seven miles,” she said, “but here is Franz and the post-wagon. Franz, you will be glad to give the gentleman a seat beside you.”