“This is my boy”—he exclaimed, “this is my boy!” while he was striving to press through the crowd; but when has a crowd listened to any thing? On it went, and I floated on a sea of heads and hats. At last my father, impelled by a parent's anxiety, almost driven by despair, succeeded in severing this piece of human mosaic. He grasped my foot, and down I went. My situation was in no way bettered, for the current of men continued to roll on; as Socrates threw himself over his beloved Alcibiades or Epaminondas over Pelopidas (I compare the great to the small) so resolved my father to form a shield over his urchin. This necessarily soon created a mountain of tumbling and scrambling individuals over me, and I should surely have been suffocated, had not most happily the layer over my father consisted of a huge grenadier, who, torn or driven from his line, had met with this living stumbling block. “There is a boy below,” he shouted, with a stentorian voice; “by G— he sha'nt be killed.” I considered this a very sensible speech, quite to the purpose; and felt happy indeed, when my Trim—if he was no sergeant, I would have given him the cheveron on the spot, had I possessed the power—succeeded in excavating me. Oh, with what feeling I drew breath! but Schill was gone; I heard the music at a distance long past by, while my father hugged me, his eyes beaming with joyful gratitude for my delivery. We now mingled with the soldiers, and my father picked out three or four, to take quarters with us. So great was the ardor of the citizens of Berlin, to have some of the followers quartered with them, and in such a degree was all military order broken into, that it was impossible for the commanding officer to give any orders before his followers were dismissed, and he was obliged, the next morning, to publish the order, where and when the rendezvous should take place, through the police of the city. My father had caught an officer and several privates; we made them tell us of Colberg the whole livelong day, and pestered them with a thousand questions.