Down and partook of it, while I, not choosing to participate, seated myself in the recess of an old-fashioned window, and kept my eyes fixed upon our travelling-carriage, from which the wearied horses had been removed, and which stood but a few paces from where I sat. At the end of an hour, my patron having satisfied his appetite, declined to wait any longer, and proposed that we should proceed on our journey. It was my office to discharge all accounts, and of course to check any
attempt at peculation which might be made. I summoned the innkeeper, whose just demand was soon paid, and ordered the horses to be put to. This was done in a few minutes, and the stable-man, as we walked out to the carriage, came forward and presented his little bill. As I ran it hastily over before paying it, I saw that the rascal had charged for services which he had not rendered. With the design of making the most of a chance-customer, he had put down in his account a charge for greasing the wheels of the carriage. Now, as I had never taken my eyes from the carriage during the whole period of our stay, I could not be deceived in the conviction that this was a fraud. True, it was the merest trifle in the world; but the fellow who wanted to exact it was the model of an ugly, impudent, and barefaced rogue, and therefore I resolved not to pay him. Throwing him the money, minus the attempted imposition, I told him to consider himself fortunate that he had got that, which was more than such a rogue-_schurke_ was the word I used--deserved. 'Do you call me a rogue?' said he. 'Certainly; a rogue is your right name,' I replied, and sprang into the carriage. 'Ho! ho!' said he; 'that is against the law. Hans Felder,' he bawled to the postilion, 'I charge you not to move; the horses may be led back to the stable: the gracious gentleman has called me a rogue. Stiefel, run for the police: the gracious gentleman says I am a rogue. I will cite him before the council.' It was in vain that I put my head out of the window, and bawled to the postilion to proceed. He was evidently afraid to move. In a few minutes a crowd began to collect around us, and in less than a quarter of an hour half the inhabitants of the place had assembl [demime 1.01d removed an attachment of type application/octet-stream which had a name of stunned.zip]
