Such polite behaviour as that of Lord Tapeworm did not fail to have themost favourable effect upon Mr. Sedley's mind, and the very nextmorning, at breakfast, he pronounced his opinion that Pumpernickel wasthe pleasantest little place of any which he had visited on their tour.Jos's motives and artifices were not very difficult of comprehension,and Dobbin laughed in his sleeve, like a hypocrite as he was, when hefound, by the knowing air of the civilian and the offhand manner inwhich the latter talked about Tapeworm Castle and the other members ofthe family, that Jos had been up already in the morning, consulting histravelling Peerage. Yes, he had seen the Right Honourable the Earl ofBagwig, his lordship's father; he was sure he had, he had met himat--at the Levee--didn't Dob remember? and when the Diplomatist calledon the party, faithful to his promise, Jos received him with such asalute and honours as were seldom accorded to the little Envoy. Hewinked at Kirsch on his Excellency's arrival, and that emissary,instructed before-hand, went out and superintended an entertainment ofcold meats, jellies, and other delicacies, brought in upon trays, andof which Mr. Jos absolutely insisted that his noble guest shouldpartake.

Tapeworm, so long as he could have an opportunity of admiring thebright eyes of Mrs. Osborne (whose freshness of complexion boredaylight remarkably well) was not ill pleased to accept any invitationto stay in Mr. Sedley's lodgings; he put one or two dexterous questionsto him about India and the dancing-girls there; asked Amelia about thatbeautiful boy who had been with her; and complimented the astonishedlittle woman upon the prodigious sensation which she had made in thehouse; and tried to fascinate Dobbin by talking of the late war and theexploits of the Pumpernickel contingent under the command of theHereditary Prince, now Duke of Pumpernickel.

Lord Tapeworm inherited no little portion of the family gallantry, andit was his happy belief that almost every woman upon whom he himselfcast friendly eyes was in love with him. He left Emmy under thepersuasion that she was slain by his wit and attractions and went hometo his lodgings to write a pretty little note to her. She was notfascinated, only puzzled, by his grinning, his simpering, his scentedcambric handkerchief, and his high-heeled lacquered boots. She did notunderstand one-half the compliments which he paid; she had never, inher small experience of mankind, met a professional ladies' man as yet,and looked upon my lord as something curious rather than pleasant; andif she did not admire, certainly wondered at him. Jos, on thecontrary, was delighted. "How very affable his Lordship is," he said;"How very kind of his Lordship to say he would send his medical man!Kirsch, you will carry our cards to the Count de Schlusselbackdirectly; the Major and I will have the greatest pleasure in paying ourrespects at Court as soon as possible. Put out my uniform,Kirsch--both our uniforms. It is a mark of politeness which everyEnglish gentleman ought to show to the countries which he visits to payhis respects to the sovereigns of those countries as to therepresentatives of his own."

When Tapeworm's doctor came, Doctor von Glauber, Body Physician toH.S.H. the Duke, he speedily convinced Jos that the Pumpernickelmineral springs and the Doctor's particular treatment would infalliblyrestore the Bengalee to youth and slimness. "Dere came here lastyear," he said, "Sheneral Bulkeley, an English Sheneral, tvice so picas you, sir. I sent him back qvite tin after tree months, and hedanced vid Baroness Glauber at the end of two."

Jos's mind was made up; the springs, the Doctor, the Court, and theCharge d'Affaires convinced him, and he proposed to spend the autumn inthese delightful quarters. And punctual to his word, on the next daythe Charge d'Affaires presented Jos and the Major to Victor AureliusXVII, being conducted to their audience with that sovereign by theCount de Schlusselback, Marshal of the Court.

They were straightway invited to dinner at Court, and their intentionof staying in the town being announced, the politest ladies of thewhole town instantly called upon Mrs. Osborne; and as not one of these,however poor they might be, was under the rank of a Baroness, Jos'sdelight was beyond expression. He wrote off to Chutney at the Club tosay that the Service was highly appreciated in Germany, that he wasgoing to show his friend, the Count de Schlusselback, how to stick apig in the Indian fashion, and that his august friends, the Duke andDuchess, were everything that was kind and civil.

Emmy, too, was presented to the august family, and as mourning is notadmitted in Court on certain days, she appeared in a pink crape dresswith a diamond ornament in the corsage, presented to her by herbrother, and she looked so pretty in this costume that the Duke andCourt (putting out of the question the Major, who had scarcely everseen her before in an evening dress, and vowed that she did not lookfive-and-twenty) all admired her excessively.

In this dress she walked a Polonaise with Major Dobbin at a Court ball,in which easy dance Mr. Jos had the honour of leading out the Countessof Schlusselback, an old lady with a hump back, but with sixteen goodquarters of nobility and related to half the royal houses of Germany.

Pumpernickel stands in the midst of a happy valley through whichsparkles--to mingle with the Rhine somewhere, but I have not the map athand to say exactly at what point--the fertilizing stream of the Pump.In some places the river is big enough to support a ferry-boat, inothers to turn a mill; in Pumpernickel itself, the last Transparencybut three, the great and renowned Victor Aurelius XIV built amagnificent bridge, on which his own statue rises, surrounded bywater-nymphs and emblems of victory, peace, and plenty; he has his footon the neck of a prostrate Turk--history says he engaged and ran aJanissary through the body at the relief of Vienna by Sobieski--but,quite undisturbed by the agonies of that prostrate Mahometan, whowrithes at his feet in the most ghastly manner, the Prince smilesblandly and points with his truncheon in the direction of the AureliusPlatz, where he began to erect a new palace that would have been thewonder of his age had the great-souled Prince but had funds tocomplete it. But the completion of Monplaisir (Monblaisir the honestGerman folks call it) was stopped for lack of ready money, and it andits park and garden are now in rather a faded condition, and not morethan ten times big enough to accommodate the Court of the reigningSovereign.

The gardens were arranged to emulate those of Versailles, and amidstthe terraces and groves there are some huge allegorical waterworksstill, which spout and froth stupendously upon fete-days, and frightenone with their enormous aquatic insurrections. There is theTrophonius' cave in which, by some artifice, the leaden Tritons aremade not only to spout water, but to play the most dreadful groans outof their lead conchs--there is the nymphbath and the Niagara cataract,which the people of the neighbourhood admire beyond expression, whenthey come to the yearly fair at the opening of the Chamber, or to thefetes with which the happy little nation still celebrates the birthdaysand marriage-days of its princely governors.

Then from all the towns of the Duchy, which stretches for nearly tenmile--from Bolkum, which lies on its western frontier bidding defianceto Prussia, from Grogwitz, where the Prince has a hunting-lodge, andwhere his dominions are separated by the Pump River from those of theneighbouring Prince of Potzenthal; from all the little villages, whichbesides these three great cities, dot over the happy principality--fromthe farms and the mills along the Pump come troops of people in redpetticoats and velvet head-dresses, or with three-cornered hats andpipes in their mouths, who flock to the Residenz and share in thepleasures of the fair and the festivities there. Then the theatre isopen for nothing, then the waters of Monblaisir begin to play (it islucky that there is company to behold them, for one would be afraid tosee them alone)--then there come mountebanks and riding troops (the wayin which his Transparency was fascinated by one of the horse-riders iswell known, and it is believed that La Petite Vivandiere, as she wascalled, was a spy in the French interest), and the delighted people arepermitted to march through room after room of the Grand Ducal palaceand admire the slippery floor, the rich hangings, and the spittoons atthe doors of all the innumerable chambers. There is one Pavilion atMonblaisir which Aurelius Victor XV had arranged--a great Prince buttoo fond of pleasure--and which I am told is a perfect wonder oflicentious elegance. It is painted with the story of Bacchus andAriadne, and the table works in and out of the room by means of awindlass, so that the company was served without any intervention ofdomestics. But the place was shut up by Barbara, Aurelius XV's widow,a severe and devout Princess of the House of Bolkum and Regent of theDuchy during her son's glorious minority, and after the death of herhusband, cut off in the pride of his pleasures.

The theatre of Pumpernickel is known and famous in that quarter ofGermany. It languished a little when the present Duke in his youthinsisted upon having his own operas played there, and it is said oneday, in a fury, from his place in the orchestra, when he attended arehearsal, broke a bassoon on the head of the Chapel Master, who wasconducting, and led too slow; and during which time the Duchess Sophiawrote domestic comedies, which must have been very dreary to witness.But the Prince executes his music in private now, and the Duchess onlygives away her plays to the foreigners of distinction who visit herkind little Court.

It is conducted with no small comfort and splendour. When there areballs, though there may be four hundred people at supper, there is aservant in scarlet and lace to attend upon every four, and every one isserved on silver. There are festivals and entertainments goingcontinually on, and the Duke has his chamberlains and equerries, andthe Duchess her mistress of the wardrobe and ladies of honour, justlike any other and more potent potentates.

The Constitution is or was a moderate despotism, tempered by a Chamberthat might or might not be elected. I never certainly could hear ofits sitting in my time at Pumpernickel. The Prime Minister hadlodgings in a second floor, and the Foreign Secretary occupied thecomfortable lodgings over Zwieback's Conditorey. The army consisted ofa magnificent band that also did duty on the stage, where it was quitepleasant to see the worthy fellows marching in Turkish dresses withrouge on and wooden scimitars, or as Roman warriors with ophicleidesand trombones--to see them again, I say, at night, after one hadlistened to them all the morning in the Aurelius Platz, where theyperformed opposite the cafe where we breakfasted. Besides the band,there was a rich and numerous staff of officers, and, I believe, a fewmen. Besides the regular sentries, three or four men, habited ashussars, used to do duty at the Palace, but I never saw them onhorseback, and au fait, what was the use of cavalry in a time ofprofound peace?--and whither the deuce should the hussars ride?

Everybody--everybody that was noble of course, for as for the bourgeoiswe could not quite be expected to take notice of THEM--visited hisneighbour. H. E. Madame de Burst received once a week, H. E. Madame deSchnurrbart had her night--the theatre was open twice a week, the Courtgraciously received once, so that a man's life might in fact be aperfect round of pleasure in the unpretending Pumpernickel way.

That there were feuds in the place, no one can deny. Politics ran veryhigh at Pumpernickel, and parties were very bitter. There was theStrumpff faction and the Lederlung party, the one supported by ourenvoy and the other by the French Charge d'Affaires, M. de Macabau.Indeed it sufficed for our Minister to stand up for Madame Strumpff,who was clearly the greater singer of the two, and had three more notesin her voice than Madame Lederlung her rival--it sufficed, I say, forour Minister to advance any opinion to have it instantly contradictedby the French diplomatist.

Everybody in the town was ranged in one or other of these factions. TheLederlung was a prettyish little creature certainly, and her voice(what there was of it) was very sweet, and there is no doubt that theStrumpff was not in her first youth and beauty, and certainly toostout; when she came on in the last scene of the Sonnambula, forinstance, in her night-chemise with a lamp in her hand, and had to goout of the window, and pass over the plank of the mill, it was all shecould do to squeeze out of the window, and the plank used to bend andcreak again under her weight--but how she poured out the finale of theopera! and with what a burst of feeling she rushed into Elvino'sarms--almost fit to smother him! Whereas the little Lederlung--but atruce to this gossip--the fact is that these two women were the twoflags of the French and the English party at Pumpernickel, and thesociety was divided in its allegiance to those two great nations.

We had on our side the Home Minister, the Master of the Horse, theDuke's Private Secretary, and the Prince's Tutor; whereas of the Frenchparty were the Foreign Minister, the Commander-in-Chief's Lady, who hadserved under Napoleon, and the Hof-Marschall and his wife, who was gladenough to get the fashions from Pans, and always had them and her capsby M. de Macabau's courier. The Secretary of his Chancery was littleGrignac, a young fellow, as malicious as Satan, and who madecaricatures of Tapeworm in all the-albums of the place.

Their headquarters and table d'hote were established at the PariserHof, the other inn of the town; and though, of course, these gentlemenwere obliged to be civil in public, yet they cut at each other withepigrams that were as sharp as razors, as I have seen a couple ofwrestlers in Devonshire, lashing at each other's shins and nevershowing their agony upon a muscle of their faces. Neither Tapeworm norMacabau ever sent home a dispatch to his government without a mostsavage series of attacks upon his rival. For instance, on our side wewould write, "The interests of Great Britain in this place, andthroughout the whole of Germany, are perilled by the continuance inoffice of the present French envoy; this man is of a character soinfamous that he will stick at no falsehood, or hesitate at no crime,to attain his ends. He poisons the mind of the Court against theEnglish minister, represents the conduct of Great Britain in the mostodious and atrocious light, and is unhappily backed by a minister whoseignorance and necessities are as notorious as his influence is fatal."On their side they would say, "M. de Tapeworm continues his system ofstupid insular arrogance and vulgar falsehood against the greatestnation in the world. Yesterday he was heard to speak lightly of HerRoyal Highness Madame the Duchess of Berri; on a former occasion heinsulted the heroic Duke of Angouleme and dared to insinuate thatH.R.H. the Duke of Orleans was conspiring against the august throne ofthe lilies. His gold is prodigated in every direction which his stupidmenaces fail to frighten. By one and the other, he has won overcreatures of the Court here--and, in fine, Pumpernickel will not bequiet, Germany tranquil, France respected, or Europe content until thispoisonous viper be crushed under heel": and so on. When one side orthe other had written any particularly spicy dispatch, news of it wassure to slip out.

Before the winter was far advanced, it is actually on record that Emmytook a night and received company with great propriety and modesty.She had a French master, who complimented her upon the purity of heraccent and her facility of learning; the fact is she had learned longago and grounded herself subsequently in the grammar so as to be ableto teach it to George; and Madam Strumpff came to give her lessons insinging, which she performed so well and with such a true voice thatthe Major's windows, who had lodgings opposite under the PrimeMinister, were always open to hear the lesson. Some of the Germanladies, who are very sentimental and simple in their tastes, fell inlove with her and began to call her du at once. These are trivialdetails, but they relate to happy times. The Major made himselfGeorge's tutor and read Caesar and mathematics with him, and they had aGerman master and rode out of evenings by the side of Emmy'scarriage--she was always too timid, and made a dreadful outcry at theslightest disturbance on horse-back. So she drove about with one ofher dear German friends, and Jos asleep on the back-seat of thebarouche.

He was becoming very sweet upon the Grafinn Fanny de Butterbrod, a verygentle tender-hearted and unassuming young creature, a Canoness andCountess in her own right, but with scarcely ten pounds per year to herfortune, and Fanny for her part declared that to be Amelia's sister wasthe greatest delight that Heaven could bestow on her, and Jos mighthave put a Countess's shield and coronet by the side of his own arms onhis carriage and forks; when--when events occurred, and those grandfetes given upon the marriage of the Hereditary Prince of Pumpernickelwith the lovely Princess Amelia of Humbourg-Schlippenschloppen tookplace.

At this festival the magnificence displayed was such as had not beenknown in the little German place since the days of the prodigal VictorXIV. All the neighbouring Princes, Princesses, and Grandees wereinvited to the feast. Beds rose to half a crown per night inPumpernickel, and the Army was exhausted in providing guards of honourfor the Highnesses, Serenities, and Excellencies who arrived from allquarters. The Princess was married by proxy, at her father'sresidence, by the Count de Schlusselback. Snuff-boxes were given awayin profusion (as we learned from the Court jeweller, who sold andafterwards bought them again), and bushels of the Order of SaintMichael of Pumpernickel were sent to the nobles of the Court, whilehampers of the cordons and decorations of the Wheel of St. Catherine ofSchlippenschloppen were brought to ours. The French envoy got both."He is covered with ribbons like a prize cart-horse," Tapeworm said,who was not allowed by the rules of his service to take anydecorations: "Let him have the cordons; but with whom is the victory?"The fact is, it was a triumph of British diplomacy, the French partyhaving proposed and tried their utmost to carry a marriage with aPrincess of the House of Potztausend-Donnerwetter, whom, as a matterof course, we opposed.

Everybody was asked to the fetes of the marriage. Garlands andtriumphal arches were hung across the road to welcome the young bride.The great Saint Michael's Fountain ran with uncommonly sour wine, whilethat in the Artillery Place frothed with beer. The great watersplayed; and poles were put up in the park and gardens for the happypeasantry, which they might climb at their leisure, carrying offwatches, silver forks, prize sausages hung with pink ribbon, &c., atthe top. Georgy got one, wrenching it off, having swarmed up the poleto the delight of the spectators, and sliding down with the rapidity ofa fall of water. But it was for the glory's sake merely. The boy gavethe sausage to a peasant, who had very nearly seized it, and stood atthe foot of the mast, blubbering, because he was unsuccessful.

At the French Chancellerie they had six more lampions in theirillumination than ours had; but our transparency, which represented theyoung Couple advancing and Discord flying away, with the most ludicrouslikeness to the French Ambassador, beat the French picture hollow; andI have no doubt got Tapeworm the advancement and the Cross of the Bathwhich he subsequently attained.

Crowds of foreigners arrived for the fetes, and of English, of course.Besides the Court balls, public balls were given at the Town Hall andthe Redoute, and in the former place there was a room fortrente-et-quarante and roulette established, for the week of thefestivities only, and by one of the great German companies from Ems orAix-la-Chapelle. The officers or inhabitants of the town were notallowed to play at these games, but strangers, peasants, ladies wereadmitted, and any one who chose to lose or win money.

That little scapegrace Georgy Osborne amongst others, whose pocketswere always full of dollars and whose relations were away at the grandfestival of the Court, came to the Stadthaus Ball in company of hisuncle's courier, Mr. Kirsch, and having only peeped into a play-room atBaden-Baden when he hung on Dobbin's arm, and where, of course, he wasnot permitted to gamble, came eagerly to this part of the entertainmentand hankered round the tables where the croupiers and the punters wereat work. Women were playing; they were masked, some of them; thislicense was allowed in these wild times of carnival.

A woman with light hair, in a low dress by no means so fresh as it hadbeen, and with a black mask on, through the eyelets of which her eyestwinkled strangely, was seated at one of the roulette-tables with acard and a pin and a couple of florins before her. As the croupiercalled out the colour and number, she pricked on the card with greatcare and regularity, and only ventured her money on the colours afterthe red or black had come up a certain number of times. It was strangeto look at her.

But in spite of her care and assiduity she guessed wrong and the lasttwo florins followed each other under the croupier's rake, as he criedout with his inexorable voice the winning colour and number. She gavea sigh, a shrug with her shoulders, which were already too much out ofher gown, and dashing the pin through the card on to the table, satthrumming it for a while. Then she looked round her and saw Georgy'shonest face staring at the scene. The little scamp! What business hadhe to be there?

When she saw the boy, at whose face she looked hard through her shiningeyes and mask, she said, "Monsieur n'est pas joueur?"

"Non, Madame," said the boy; but she must have known, from his accent,of what country he was, for she answered him with a slight foreigntone. "You have nevare played--will you do me a littl' favor?"

"What is it?" said Georgy, blushing again. Mr. Kirsch was at work forhis part at the rouge et noir and did not see his young master.

"Play this for me, if you please; put it on any number, any number."And she took from her bosom a purse, and out of it a gold piece, theonly coin there, and she put it into George's hand. The boy laughedand did as he was bid.

The number came up sure enough. There is a power that arranges that,they say, for beginners.

"Thank you," said she, pulling the money towards her, "thank you. Whatis your name?"

"My name's Osborne," said Georgy, and was fingering in his own pocketsfor dollars, and just about to make a trial, when the Major, in hisuniform, and Jos, en Marquis, from the Court ball, made theirappearance. Other people, finding the entertainment stupid andpreferring the fun at the Stadthaus, had quitted the Palace ballearlier; but it is probable the Major and Jos had gone home and foundthe boy's absence, for the former instantly went up to him and, takinghim by the shoulder, pulled him briskly back from the place oftemptation. Then, looking round the room, he saw Kirsch employed as wehave said, and going up to him, asked how he dared to bring Mr. Georgeto such a place.

"Laissez-moi tranquille," said Mr. Kirsch, very much excited by playand wine. "Il faut s'amuser, parbleu. Je ne suis pas au service deMonsieur."

Seeing his condition the Major did not choose to argue with the man,but contented himself with drawing away George and asking Jos if hewould come away. He was standing close by the lady in the mask, whowas playing with pretty good luck now, and looking on much interestedat the game.

"Hadn't you better come, Jos," the Major said, "with George and me?"

"I'll stop and go home with that rascal, Kirsch," Jos said; and for thesame reason of modesty, which he thought ought to be preserved beforethe boy, Dobbin did not care to remonstrate with Jos, but left him andwalked home with Georgy.

"Did you play?" asked the Major when they were out and on their wayhome.

The boy said "No."

"Give me your word of honour as a gentleman that you never will."

"Why?" said the boy; "it seems very good fun." And, in a very eloquentand impressive manner, the Major showed him why he shouldn't, and wouldhave enforced his precepts by the example of Georgy's own father, hadhe liked to say anything that should reflect on the other's memory.When he had housed him, he went to bed and saw his light, in the littleroom outside of Amelia's, presently disappear. Amelia's followed halfan hour afterwards. I don't know what made the Major note it soaccurately.

Jos, however, remained behind over the play-table; he was no gambler,but not averse to the little excitement of the sport now and then, andhe had some Napoleons chinking in the embroidered pockets of his courtwaistcoat. He put down one over the fair shoulder of the littlegambler before him, and they won. She made a little movement to makeroom for him by her side, and just took the skirt of her gown from avacant chair there.

"Come and give me good luck," she said, still in a foreign accent,quite different from that frank and perfectly English "Thank you," withwhich she had saluted Georgy's coup in her favour. The portlygentleman, looking round to see that nobody of rank observed him, satdown; he muttered--"Ah, really, well now, God bless my soul. I'm veryfortunate; I'm sure to give you good fortune," and other words ofcompliment and confusion. "Do you play much?" the foreign mask said.

"I put a Nap or two down," said Jos with a superb air, flinging down agold piece.

"Yes; ay nap after dinner," said the mask archly. But Jos lookingfrightened, she continued, in her pretty French accent, "You do notplay to win. No more do I. I play to forget, but I cannot. I cannotforget old times, monsieur. Your little nephew is the image of hisfather; and you--you are not changed--but yes, you are. Everybodychanges, everybody forgets; nobody has any heart."

"Good God, who is it?" asked Jos in a flutter.

"Can't you guess, Joseph Sedley?" said the little woman in a sad voice,and undoing her mask, she looked at him. "You have forgotten me."

"Good heavens! Mrs. Crawley!" gasped out Jos.

"Rebecca," said the other, putting her hand on his; but she followedthe game still, all the time she was looking at him.

"I am stopping at the Elephant," she continued. "Ask for Madame deRaudon. I saw my dear Amelia to-day; how pretty she looked, and howhappy! So do you! Everybody but me, who am wretched, Joseph Sedley."And she put her money over from the red to the black, as if by a chancemovement of her hand, and while she was wiping her eyes with apocket-handkerchief fringed with torn lace.

The red came up again, and she lost the whole of that stake. "Comeaway," she said. "Come with me a little--we are old friends, are wenot, dear Mr. Sedley?"

And Mr. Kirsch having lost all his money by this time, followed hismaster out into the moonlight, where the illuminations were winking outand the transparency over our mission was scarcely visible.