Hot punch is a scientific discovery, which is efficient against the very fear of the disease, as I had occasion to observe in the case of Frau Postlieutenant, who was so moved by reading the papers that she was once affected in a peculiar manner, and could not find her pulse when she felt for it, which put her in an indescribable state of mind; for when the pulse is gone the last stage is approaching, and it is time to give a thought to one’s funeral. A glass or two of hot punch allayed the symptoms immediately, and before fifteen minutes were gone Frau Postlieutenant could feel her pulse all over. She assured us that it was hammering in her toes quite as strongly as in her temples. She was saved. “Frau Buchholz,” said she, “if you had not happened to come in just now, who knows but the black omnibus would have had to be harnessed for me by this time?” “It did look bad enough,” I replied, “but not so bad as all that. It was enough, though, to frighten a person out of her seven wits.” “I shan’t read another paper until the fruit season is over,” said the Frau Postlieutenant. “There you are right,” said I. “A juicy pear in one hand, and in the other thrilling accounts of the cholera would be more than Goliath could stand.” So this was an experience once more, to the effect that not everything that the papers bring is good for people, and that there is no better thing to bring one’s pulse back than a glass of punch, provided it is good and hot. The Frau Postlieutenant does not belong to that class of persons who try to give themselves an air by being ungrateful; who, when they have visited anywhere, talk about the discomfort of the beds, and, when they have been asked out, run to tell their neighbour the next day that it is quite beyond them to understand how any one can venture to offer such poor refreshments. No, she is not that sort, for when she had quite recovered she sent around to invite me to take a ride with her to the Grunewald, and drink coffee at Paulsborn, and then back again by way of Schildhorn. She had hired a very swell turn-out for the afternoon, first-class, with a coachman in livery, whose coat-tails, gorgeous with buttons, hung down from the box like a yard and a half of starry sky. It is not to be denied that the further end of the Kurfürstendamm, where there are no more houses, is pretty sandy, and the dust is given to flying about at a great rate; but as I had on my potato-coloured dress, trimmed with light brown satin, I did not suffer perceptibly, but the Frau Postlieutenant, in her black gown all covered with fine braiding, soon looked as if she had been done up in packing paper. Every vigorous breath of air brought some of the landscape between our teeth, where it gave a horribly rasping sound, but we bore up bravely, knowing that in Paulsborn the coffee-pot was awaiting us with its soothing contents.