There _was_ one thing, however, of which young George would _not_ doubt. He felt quite sure that he was born. He had no hesitation upon that question; and he was a philosopher of the Descartes school, without ever having heard anything of the Cartesian philosophy. He soon gave himself, or had given to him, a name. He had first seen light in a village; and he was accordingly called George Villager, or Little Villager. “Dorf” implies _village_, and “Dörfling,” _villager_; and accordingly the little Bohemian took that humble name,—nobody having the slightest idea that he would ever make it famous, and upon it place a baron’s coronet. The village authorities had no coronets wherewith to grace his head, and in place thereof they put a thimble on his finger and a needle in his hand. Greatness could hardly have begun with smaller pretensions. The boy was apprenticed to a tailor, and a very excellent tailor he made. But what he did _not_ make was money. In his village he could acquire little cash and no fame. The boy was ambitious, and he declared that he would walk to Berlin, and build wide-skirted coats for the army generals. The villagers thought him mad; and the melancholy sexton’s laughing daughter ceased to laugh when the handsome lad spoke of his resolve. He was not to be turned from his resolution by Katinka the fair; and so, with a light bundle, a lighter heart, and a purse lighter than all, he kissed his Ariadne, with the easy air of a dragoon leaving garrison, and with hope in his heart, turned his face towards Berlin. He walked on uninterruptedly until he reached the banks of the Elbe; there he found the waters out, and his purse in the same condition. And yet not in the same condition; for the waters had overflowed, and his purse had not. He had reckoned upon fording the stream, but if he would cross he must needs ferry it. The Styx itself is not to be traversed without a fee, and in that respect the Elbe was like the Styx. Charon was inflexible. Dörfling solicited aid from a group of young officers. Like Lieutenant Perry, he was called “a fool for his pains.” The police standing near, finding him penniless, deemed him disreputable. They asked for his papers; and when one little official, a mere starveling, read aloud that the stalwart lad was only a tailor, the crowd pushed him aside with contempt, and bade him stand out of the way of better men. One of the officers nevertheless approached him, with more of a seductive than a contemptuous look about him. “At your age,” said he, “a handsome fellow like yourself should have handsome clothes to help his looks, and a well-furnished purse to give dignity to his clothes. If you want to starve, by all means continue tailoring; but if you would become a man, and a gay one too, throw away that accursed bundle of rags, and cross the ferry in a better service.”