But we roused ourselves from the reveries which such a scene could not fail to awaken, for the darkness was gathering, and a voice within bade us seek the good cheer of our inn; when we were arrested by the sounds of music and the sight of a booth near the market-place, and, finding that a peep-show was going on, paid our kreutzers and went in. A moonlight view of the Tuileries is hardly what one would go to Brood to see, and we were beginning to think the show a trifle dull, when the serenity of the sightseers was broken in upon by the abrupt entry of two police-officers, and from their evident designs on some person or persons unknown we were congratulating ourselves on the prospect of a more lively spectacle. These expectations were indeed justified by the two officials pouncing upon L⸺ and myself, and ordering us to accompany them immediately to the Commissär of Police. ‘Tell the Commissär of Police that if he wants to see us he had better come himself,’ said I, who acted as our spokesman. ‘Very sorry, sir,’ said the official addressed, ‘but our orders were to bring you.’ ‘Tell him,’ I said, ‘that we are Englishmen, and are not accustomed to be treated in this way!’ Here a Slavonian gentleman intervened. He said that there must be some misunderstanding; that it was a most unfortunate occurrence; but, in fact, these men had orders to arrest us if we did not follow them at once. Evidently, to avoid a row, there was nothing for it but to take his advice; so we were marched along the streets of Brood with a gendarme on each side of us, to all intents and purposes under arrest; till at last, in no very accommodating humour, we arrived at the official’s house, a long way off in the suburbs. Here we were stumped through a court, and then ushered into a dirty little room, where we found his highness seated at table in his shirt-sleeves, chewing a Coriolanan meal of maize. He did not get up from his chair to receive us, or even offer us a seat; but glancing at us in a way which made us wish to knock him down and conclude the business offhand, asked us in a surly and (we fancied) a slightly husky voice who we were. ‘We are Englishmen,’ replied I, in German. ‘Give me your pass!’ shouted the Commissär in a still rougher tone; ‘what do you mean by entering the town without reporting yourselves to ME?’ To which I replied that he ought to know as well as we did that travellers could pass from one town in the monarchy to another without being subjected to such annoying regulations; but that, so far as Brood was concerned, we had as a matter of fact already shown our passes to two gendarmes. What was more, we need scarcely inform him that at the present time Englishmen could pass into Austria, just as Austrians into England, without a passport being demanded. ‘And I think, sir,’ I added, ‘as you wished to see us, it would have been more civil if you had called in person at our hotel.’