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the eye of a post!-He minds me no more than if I trod on the toes of a stock-fish! I might as well cough into the ears of a stone wall." In fact, honest Dietrich

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had totally forgotten the domestic dilemma.

"He will never take his eyes off," thought Madame Doppeldick, stealing a glance across the table; "I was never so stared at, never, since I was a girland wore pigtails! I expect every moment he will jump up and embrace me." Whereas nothing could be further from the Captain's thought. The second battalion had joined that very morning, and accordingly he had kissed, or heen kissed by, all its eightand-twenty officers, tall

KISSING GOES BY FAVOUR."

or short, fat or lean, fair or swarthy,-which was quite kissing enough for a reasonable day's ration. The truth is, he was staring at himself. He had just, mentally, put on a new uniform, and was looking with the back of his eyes at his own brilliant figure, as a Captain in the Royal Guards. It was,

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however, a stare, outwardly, at Madame Doppeldick, who took everything to herself, frogs, lace, bullion, buttons, cuffs, collars, epaulettes, and the Deuce knows what besides.

"I would to heaven!" she wished," he had never thought of going into the army, or at least that the Quartermaster had never taken it into his stupid head to quarter him on us. Young gay Captains are very well to flirt with, or to waltz with, but at my years and bulk waltzing is quite out of the question!"

WALTZING TO A NEW AIR.

CHAPTER VI.

Ar last Captain Schenk changed his posture, and averted his familiar eyes from the face of Madame Doppeldick; but it was only to give her a fresh alarm with his free-and-easy mouth. First of all he clenched his fists-then he raised his arms at full stretch above his head, as if he wanted to be crucified, and then turning his face upwards towards the ceiling, with his eyes shut, and his jaws open -he yawned such a yawn as panther never yawned after prowling all day, without prey, in a ten-foot cage

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Auw-yauw-au-ya-augh-auwayawauwghf!"

"By all the Saints," thought the terrified Madame Doppeldick, "he will be for packing off to bed at once!"-and in the vain hope of inducing him to sup beforehand, she seized, yes, she actually seized the devoted dish of oysters, and made them relieve guard, with the home-made bacon, just under the Captain's nose. It was now honest Dietrich's turn to try to catch the eyes of posts, and tread on the toes of stock-fish; however, for this time the natives were safe.

"By your leave, Madame," said the abominable voice through the mustachios, "I will take nothing except a candle. What with the heavy rain at first, and then the horse artillery ploughing up our marching ground, I am really dog-tired with my day's work. If you will do me the favour, therefore, to show me to my chamber"

"Not for the whole world!" exclaimed the horrified Madame Doppeldick-"not for the whole world, I mean, till you have hob-andnobbed with us-at least with the good man"

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and, like a warm-hearted hostess, jealous of the honour of her hospitality, she snatched up the spare-candle, and hurried off to the barrel. If she could but set them down to drinking, she calculated, let who would be the second, she would herself be the first in bed, if she jumped into it with all her clothes on. It was a likely scheme enough,--but alas! it fell through, like the rest!-Before she had

drawn half a flask of Essigberger, or Holzapfelheimer, for I forget which she was alarmed by the double screech of two chairs pushed suddenly back on the uncarpeted floor. Then came a trampling of light and heavy feet-and although she dropped the bottle-and forgot to turn the spigot-and carried the candle without the candlestickand left her left slipper behind her,-still, in spite of all the haste she could make, she only reached the stair-foot just in time to see two Prussian-blue coat-tails, turned up with red, whisking in at the bedroom door!

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WHAT NEXT?" AS THE FROG SAID WHEN HIS TAIL FELL OFF.

CHAPTER VII.

"On the cruel, the killing ill-luck that pursues us!" exclaimed the forlorn Madame Doppeldick, as her husband returned, with his mouth watering, to the little parlour, where, by some sort of attraction, he was drawn into the Captain's vacant chair, instead of his own. In a few seconds the plumpest of Adam Kloot's tender souvenirs, of about the size and shape of a penny bun, was sliding over his tongue. Then another went and another-and another. They were a little gone or so, and no wonder; for they had travelled up the Rhine and the Moselle, in a dry "schiff," not a " dampschiff," towed by real horsepowers, instead of steam-powers, against the stream. To tell the

naked truth, there were only four words in the world that a respectably fresh Cod's head could have said to them, namely-

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No matter: down they went glibly, glibly. The lemon-juice did something for them, and the vinegar still more, by making them seem sharp instead of flat. Honest Dietrich enjoyed them as mightily as Adam Kloot could have wished; and was in no humour, you may be sure, for spinning prolix answers or long-winded speeches.

"They are good-very! - excellent! Malchen! - Just eat a couple."

But the mind of the forlorn Malchen was occupied with any thing but oysters: it was fixed upon things above, or at least overhead. "I do not think I can sit up all night," she murmured, concluding with such a gape that the tears squeezed out plentifully between her fat little eyelids.

"I've found only one bad one-and that was full of black mudschloo-00-00-ooop!"-slirropped honest Dietrich. N. B. There is no established formula of minims and crotchets on the gamut to represent the swallowing of an oyster: so the aforesaid syllables of "schloo-00-00-ooop," must stand in their stead.

"As for sleeping in my clothes," continued Madame Doppeldick, "the weather is so very warm,-and the little window won't openund with two in a bed-"

"The English do it, Malchen,-schloo-oo-ooop!"

"But the English beds have curtains," said Madame Doppeldick, "thick stuff or canvass curtains, Dietrich,-all round, and over the top-just like a general's tent."

"We can go-schloo-ooop-to bed in the dark, Malchen."

"No-no," objected Madame Doppeldick, with a grave shake of her head. "We'll have no blindman's-buff work, Dietrich,--and maybe blundering into wrong beds."

"Schloo-00-00-00-000p."

"And if ever I saw a wild, rakish, immoral, irreligious-looking young man, Dietrich, the Captain is one!"

"Schloo-00-00-00op."

"Did you observe, Dietrich, how shamefully he stared at me ?" "Schloo-ooop."

"And the cut on his forehead, Dietrich, I'll be bound he got it for no good!"

"Schloo-00-00-000p."

"Confound Adam Kloot and his oysters to boot!" exclaimed the offended Madame Doppeldick, irritated beyond all patience at the bovine apathy of her connubial partner. "I wish, I do, that the nets had burst in catching them!"

"Why, what can one do, Malchen?" asked honest Dietrich, looking up for the first time from the engrossing dish, whence the one-apenny oysters had all vanished, leaving only the two-a-penny ones behind.

"Saint Ursula only knows!" sighed Madame Doppeldick, her voice relapsing into its former tone of melancholy. "I only know that I will never undress in the room!”

"Then you must undress out of it, Malchen. Schloo-00-00-00-00op."

Schloo-oop.

"I believe that must be the way after all," said Madame Doppeldick, on whose mind her husband's sentence of transcendental philosophy had cast a new light. "To be sure there is a little landingplace at the stair-head—and our bed is exactly opposite the door-and if one scuttled briskly across the room, and jumped in-But are you sure, Dietrich, that you explained every thing correctly to the Captain? Did you tell him that his was the one next the window-with the patchwork coverlet?"

"Not a word of it!" answered honest Dietrich, who, like all other Prussians, had served his two years as a soldier, and was therefore moderately interested in military manœuvres. "Not a word of itwe talked all about the review. But I did what was far better, my own Malchen, for I saw him get into the bed with the patchwork coverlet, with my own eyes, and then took away his candle-Schloo -oo-oop!"

"It was done like my own dear, kind, Dietrich," exclaimed the delighted Madame Doppeldick, and in the sudden revulsion of her feelings, she actually pulled up his huge round bullet-head from the dish, and kissed him between the nose and chin.

The Domestic Dilemma was disarmed of its horns, Madame Doppeldick saw her way before her, as clear and open as the Rhine three months after the ice has broken up. From that moment, as long as the dish contained two oysters, the air of "Schloo-00-00-00ooop" was sung, as "arranged for a duet."

(To be continued at prge 497.)

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