Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Captain de Potzdorff was a severe officer enough on parade or in barracks, but he was a person easily led by flattery.
'Herr von Potzdorff was returning to life by this time, with a swelling on his skull as big as a saucepan; and the officers carried him off, and the judge who was sent for dressed a proces verbal of the matter, and I demanded a copy of it, which I sent forthwith to my ambassador.
"It's the young Herr von Potzdorff!" says the landlord, more and more astonished. "What! a gentleman breaking open my trunk with hammer and chisel impossible!"
My assumed dulness was perfect; and I used to make Monsieur de Potzdorff laugh with it, when I carried my little reports to him at the Garden-house outside the town where he gave me rendezvous. These reports, of course, were arranged between me and my uncle beforehand. When, for instance, he would ask me, 'What does the Chevalier do of a morning?
The captain was a young man and had distinguished himself during the war, or he would never have been advanced to rank so early. He was, moreover, the nephew and heir of the Minister of Police, Monsieur de Potzdorff, a relationship which no doubt aided in the young gentleman's promotion.
'Was the British Ambassador there? I asked, in a tone of the greatest alarm, and added, 'For Heaven's sake, sir, do not tell my name to him, or he might ask to have me delivered up: and I have no fancy to go to be hanged in my dear native country. Potzdorff, laughing, said he would take care that I should remain where I was, on which I swore eternal gratitude to him.
The next day, when I went to make my report to Monsieur de Potzdorff, I told him of the young Prussian officers that had been of late gambling; and he replied, as I expected, that the King had determined to send the Chevalier out of the country. 'He is a stingy curmudgeon, I replied; 'I have had but three Frederics from him in two months, and I hope you will remember your promise to advance me!
I appealed to my Minister, who was bound to come to my aid; and, to make a long story short, poor Potzdorff is now on his way to Spandau; and his uncle, the elder Potzdorff, has brought me five hundred louis, with a humble request that I would leave Berlin forthwith, and hush up this painful matter. 'I shall be with you at the "Three Crowns" the day after you receive this. Ask Mr.
"Come, come," says I in German, "let the gentleman go his way; he is my own countryman." This was true enough for them; and you should have seen the Highlander's eyes flash, and grow dim again. I took his arm, for Potzdorff will expect me to know all about the stranger, and marched him down to the Drei Konige. "I am your host, sir; what do you call for, Mr.
Word Of The Day