IX A Gei'man First of September 475 



then along the hollow slaty road, gradually ascend- 

 ing to the high table-land. 



We were neither of us very cheerful or talkative 

 in the misty morning, in spite of the grand sport 

 which (we hoped) was in store for us. The truth 

 is, gentle reader, if the truth must be told, which, 

 by -the -bye, I rather doubt, that the worthy Herr 

 and myself had, in Meltonian phrase, ' come to 

 grief the previous afternoon. He, — the Herr 

 Wirth — had asked me down to his mighty cellar, 

 to try all the varieties of the renowned Rauenthaler, 

 and had carried with him a long glass tube, a candle, 

 and a wine-glass into that temple of Bacchus. 

 Arrived there, he had cunningly extracted the bungs 

 from the casks, and introducing the tube into the 

 aperture, brought up, by craftily sustaining the 

 thirty-five miles of atmosphere on his fore-finger 

 nail, about a glassful of golden nectar. How often 

 he repeated this feat I know not now, though 

 possibly I did at the time ; but somehow or another 

 the tube slipped into the deepest cask, and I broke 

 the wine-glass, and Herr Wirth tumbled over the 

 candle, and somebody stole the cellar -steps, — at 

 least, we could not find them in the dark ; and I 

 think that at last we both fell asleep, and slept, 

 as far as I can remember, very peaceably, till a 

 door opened just over our heads, and Frau Wirthin 

 appeared in the doorway, with the level rays of 

 the setting sun streaming in on one side of her 

 portly person, and demanded — 



