“And my friends, they _did_ pay me out! They paid me out in such a way that I lost my head altogether, and couldn’t tell where I was or what was happening. I didn’t even know whether I was alive or dead! I was just altogether——” Here the narrator shrank down, let his arms hang helplessly, and began to speak in a kind of lifeless, almost abdominal voice. “I could hardly move.... O Lord!... Holy Saints!... Holy Virgin!... I couldn’t even speak or breathe.... And I don’t remember whether I walked or whether they carried me.... I only know that I found myself in a dark place, and quite ill; all my bones ached, all my joints throbbed—I just lay and waited for death.” The narrator sank slowly down upon the sofa. “Good Lord! it’s dreadful even to remember, let alone—— Here, my good man, give me some lemonade and a glass of brandy.” He addressed the last sentence to the steward in a tone of exhaustion; but, suddenly changing his manner, turned to the lad, and said, somewhat irritably— “I’d like to know what you find to laugh at! What’s there to cackle about? Is there anything funny in an honest tradesman being half murdered?... Oh! of course it’s funny to you! You’re nothing but a baby, and anything can amuse you.... He’s a harmless child——” Here the narrator turned to the audience. “But he can take a great club, for all that, and smash a man at one blow! And then he’ll go back to his village as an innocent child, and hop about on one foot, and play skittles.... A fine sort of child you are! Pity no one’s got time to thrash you nowadays!” “Come now!” muttered the lad, in an injured tone, from the passage. “What do you mean by ‘come now’? Do you think I didn’t see the way you cackled?” “What are you hanging about here for?” interposed the steward, glancing at the lad, as he carried to the miller a tray with lemonade. “You’ve no business here. Be off!” “Where am I to go?” “Be off, I tell you! You’ve smashed all the doors here! Get along with you!” The lad reluctantly lounged up the stairs, but instead of going away, sat down on the top step. “I should like to hear,” said one of the officers, “what had become of your apothecary.” The narrator drank some lemonade, wiped his beard and moustache, and continued—