to the General: "May your Excellence be content with this entertainment and think thereby favourably of me." The General made some resistance, but the liberal colonel pressed it upon him with these words: "The time will soon come when your Excellence will acknowledge that I am wise in making this gift. The donation is not ill applied, for I hope then to receive from your Excellence a favour which will not cost a penny." On this, Holtz, according to the custom of that time, accepted the chain and money with courteous promises to repay it under such circumstances. The General departed, and the fictitious colonel lived on there; when he passed by the guard, and the soldiers presented arms to do him honour, he threw to them a dozen thalers. Six weeks after, his money came to an end. Then he sold his coaches and horses, afterwards his clothes and linen, and spent all in drinking. His servants ran away from him, and at last nothing remained to him but a bad dress and a few pence. Then the landlord, who had made much by him, presented him with fifty thalers for travelling, but the colonel tarried till he had spent it all; again the host gave him ten thalers for travelling expenses, but the persevering reveller answered that if it was money to be spent, he would rather spend it with him than another. When that also was dissipated, the landlord offered him another five thalers, but forbade his servants to let the spendthrift have anything. At last he quitted the inn and went to the next one, where he spent his five thalers in beer. After that he wandered away to his regiment at Heilbronn. There he was immediately confined in irons, and threatened with the gallows, because he had been away so many weeks. He insisted on being taken before his General, presented himself to him, and reminded him of the evening at the inn. To the sharp rebuke of the General he answered that he had all his life wished for nothing so much as to know what were the feelings of a great lord, and for that he had used his booty.