Away went the surgeon, and the next day all Kalbsbraten knew that I was on the point of death: I had been delirious all night, had had eighty leeches, besides I don't know how much medicine; but the Kalbsbrateners knew to a scruple. Whenever anybody was ill, this little kind society knew what medicines were prescribed. Everybody in the town knew what everybody had for dinner. If Madame Rumpel had her satin dyed ever so quietly, the whole society was on the qui vive; if Countess Pultuski sent to Berlin for a new set of teeth, not a person in Kalbsbraten but what was ready to compliment her as she put them on; if Potzdorff paid his tailor's bill, or Muffinstein bought a piece of black wax for his moustaches, it was the talk of the little city. And so, of course, was my accident. In their sorrow for my misfortune, Dorothea's was quite forgotten, and those eighty leeches saved me. I became interesting; I had cards left at my door; and I kept my room for a fortnight, during which time I read every one of M. Kotzebue's plays. At the end of that period I was convalescent, though still a little lame. I called at old Speck's house and apologized for my clumsiness, with the most admirable coolness; I appeared at court, and stated calmly that I did not intend to dance any more; and when Klingenspohr grinned, I told that young gentleman such a piece of my mind as led to his wearing a large sticking-plaster patch on his nose: which was split as neatly down the middle as you would split an orange at dessert. In a word what man could do to repair my defeat, I did. There is but one thing now of which I am ashamed--of those killing epigrams which I wrote (mon Dieu! must I own it?--but even the fury of my anger proves the extent of my love!) against the Speck family. They were handed about in confidence at court, and made a frightful sensation: “IS IT POSSIBLE?” “There happened at Schloss P-mp-rn-ckel, A strange mishap our sides to tickle, And set the people in a roar;-- A strange caprice of Fortune fickle: I never thought at Pumpernickel To see a SPECK UPON THE FLOOR!” LA PERFIDE ALBION; OR, A CAUTION TO WALTZERS. “'Come to the dance,' the Briton said, And forward D-r-th-a led, Fair, fresh, and three-and-twenty! Ah, girls; beware of Britons red! What wonder that it TURNED HER HEAD? SAT VERBUM SAPIENTI.” “REASONS FOR NOT MARRYING. “'The lovely Miss S. Will surely say “yes,” You've only to ask and try;' 'That subject we'll quit;' Says Georgy the wit, 'I'VE A MUCH BETTER SPEC IN MY EYE!'”