He entered the stately speise-saal, or dining-hall of the hotel, where the landlord, in the kindly German fashion, sat at the head of the table, presiding over all his guests, more than a hundred in number, and already the waiters were busy. A single glance showed Pierrepont where his comrade sat--a smart and handsome young officer in undress uniform, who was caressing a dark moustache, and making himself agreeable to a lady beside him. He rose and beckoned to the new arrival. 'Welcome to Cologne, Carl!' 'Thanks, Heinrich. How are you?' They shook hands simply, as Charlie had a genuine English repugnance to salute a man in the German fashion on the cheek. He then took the chair which his friend, the Count, had reversed and placed against the table, for service beside his own. 'Kellner! die speise-karte!' The wine card was called for next, and the serious business of the meal began, amid all that noise and hubbub peculiar to a German _table d'hôte_, where Counts and Barons, with ribbons and orders, may be seen handling their knives and forks like English ploughmen, and pretty frauleins tugging away at chicken bones with the whitest of teeth, and the most perfect air of self-possession. The first conversation was, of course, about the expected war concerning the Spanish succession, the political sketches in the _Kladderadatch_, the official accounts in the _Staats Anzeiger_; how all Paris was brimming over with enthusiasm, rage, and vengeance; that crowds were always in the streets shouting, 'Down with Prussia!' 'To the Rhine! to the Rhine!' 'To Berlin!' How the 'Marseillaise' was being sung, and the hotel of the Prussian ambassador was only saved from total destruction by the intervention of the gendarmerie; for the time had now come when the Prussians spoke exultingly of Leipzig, even as the French did of Jena, and also raised the cry of 'To the Rhine!' while the national songs of the Fatherland were constantly sung in hoarse but martial chorus. Dinner over, the lighted candles came, as a hint for the ladies to retire, and rising like a covey of partridges they withdrew. The cloth was removed, and fresh bottles of wine, or lager-beer, with tobacco and cigars, were provided on all hands, and the conversation became more general, and, if possible, more noisy than before. As the subject of the coming war was discussed, many eyes were turned to the two friends in the uniform of the 95th Thuringians, for both seemed gentlemen and soldiers, and no troops in the world look more like our own in bearing, and in firm, manly physique, than the Prussians. Charlie Pierrepont had acquired many of the ways of the latter, and would join, when on the march, 'Was is des Deutschen Vaterland,' as lustily as if his father had been some Rhenish Baron, and not a hearty Warwickshire squire.