"Certainly not, child. The poor, simple fellow"--said Stumff, with an air of complacent superiority--"would have come to mischief of one sort or another, for he knows as little as a child. A brave, honest heart, and a good marksman, Alouise; and when you've said that, you've said all. Give me my breakfast quick, child, that I may go out and look about me a little." Alouise poured out his coffee, and gave him a slice of bread, and then hurried to the house door, calling eagerly to one or two persons who were hurrying along, to ask them what was going forward. They only replied, "Atzwanger is turning out the armed burghers," and ran off; and her father, with his mouth full, soon followed, bidding her take good care of the house. So there was she, alone in the midst of bustle, feeling solitude doubly lonely, till at length she called to a little boy who was cleaning knives, and said,-- "Dolf, run down to the gates, and bring me word what is going on." When he was gone, she thought he would perhaps not return; and felt more solitary than ever, till the young man who had escorted her to the theatre dropped in. "We're in a fine mess," said he. "Here are the Bavarians coming back." "Aye--what shall we do? Perhaps they will get possession of Innsbruck again." "Very likely. For my part, I hope they will." "Oh, Leopold! How can you be so unpatriotic?" "Why, you see, Alouise, Buonaparte is sure to get the better of us in the end, so he may as well beat us at once and have done with it." "Perhaps he won't beat us in the end." "Oh, yes, he will." "That's no argument. Why don't you go and help fight?" "Thank you, I'm not that way inclined. I told Atzwanger I'd sprained my trigger-finger. What's all that hammering about, up stairs? Are you putting up defences?" "Oh, no! A poor lame man lodges in our attic, who is amusing himself by making a barrel-organ, with a curious set of dancing automatons at the top. His whole heart is in it. He thinks the Tyrolese war nothing in comparison. Indeed, I doubt if he knows there is one." "Oh, come!" "Well, I'll take him up his breakfast, and hear what he has to say about it; and you can hear what I say and what he says, if you prick up your ears." Leopold went to the foot of a dark, steep back-stair, up which Alouise tripped, with a coffee-pot and some bread; and after she had tapped at the door he heard the following dialogue:-- "Come in!" "I've brought you some breakfast, Martin." "Thank you; though I am almost too busy to eat it." "How are you getting on?" "Take care! don't tread on that barrel!" "I don't see one." "Not a beer-barrel, but an organ-barrel." "Oh, I see; well, do you know what a bustle we were in, yesterday?" "Chimney-sweeps?" "Chimney-sweeps! no! Why, the Tyrolese took Innsbruck, and drove out the Bavarians!"