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THE DANES

Sketched by Themselves.

COUSIN CARL.

FROM THE DANISH OF CARL BERNHARD.

When I was a young man about twenty years of age, I was a sad hair-brained fellow. I lived entirely in the passing hour, the time gone by was quite forgotten, and about the future I never took the trouble to think a moment. Inclined to every possible species of foolish prank, I was always ready to rush headlong into any kind of frolic--anything that promised fun, even if that were a row; and never did I let slip the opportunity of amusing myself. I was a living proof that proverbs are not always infallible; for if 'bought wit is best,' that is to say, wisdom bought by experience, I must have become wise long ago; if 'a burned child or a scalded cat dreads the fire,' I was singed and scalded often enough to have felt some dread; and 'to pay the piper' had frequently fallen upon me. But I was none the wiser or more prudent. This preface was necessary in order to introduce the following episode of my mirth-loving youthful days.

My father thought that the best way of breaking off my intimacy with a somewhat riotous clique of young men, in whose jovial society I passed a good deal of my time, was to send me to Hamburg, where I was placed in the counting-house of a merchant, who was expected to keep a strict watch over me, on account of his well-known reputation for the most rigid morality; as if one could not find pleasant society in Hamburg if one were inclined to be gay! Before fourteen days had elapsed, I had at least three times outwitted the worthy man's vigilance, and twice out of these three times had not got home till close upon the dawn of day, without having been engaged in any fray; a pretty fair evidence that I sought good company, where the risk of getting a drubbing existed between the hours of one and three. But fate spread her protecting hand over me, and at the expiration of a year I returned safe and sound to Copenhagen, bringing back with me much experience in all manner of jolly diversions, and no small desire to carry my knowledge of them into continued practice.

I was of course destined to be bound hand and foot with the counting-house chains; but before putting them on I obtained leave to take a month's holiday in the country, and visit my uncles and my aunts in various parts of Zealand. One fine afternoon in the month of September, I sought out a common conveyance, such as is used by the peasantry, to take me the first few miles of my journey; and with my knapsack in my hand I was standing in the court-yard of the inn ready to step into the rustic carriage, when a servant entered the court and asked if there were any opportunity for Kj?ge.

'That person standing there is going straight to Kj?ge,' said the ostler of the inn.

Whoever has felt as weary of his own company on a journey as I did, if he will put himself in my place, will not think it strange that I sometimes got out of the vehicle and walked, sometimes jumped in again, sometimes sang, sometimes whistled, sometimes thrust my hands into my pockets playing with everything there, then dragged them out and buttoned up my coat. But all this impatient rummaging in my pockets did no good to the stranger's letter, which became so crushed and crumpled that at last I discovered with some dismay that it looked more like a scrap of soiled paper than a respectable letter. It was in such a condition that it would be scarcely possible to deliver it--it was really almost in tatters. There was nothing to be done but to gain a knowledge of its contents, and deliver the same verbally to the coachman. Luckily the person who had sent it did not know who I was.

With the help of a little conjecture, I at length extracted from the maltreated epistle pretty much what follows:--

'Dear Uncle,--I have duly received your esteemed favour of the 7th instant, and see by it that my father had informed you of my arrival in Copenhagen by the steam-boat, and that you are so good as to say you would send your carriage to meet me on the 11th, about seven o'clock in the evening, at Kerporal's Inn, in order to convey me from thence to your house. A severe cold, which I caught on the voyage, obliges me to keep my room for the present, and to put off my visit to your dear unknown family for eight days or so. In making this communication I beg to assure you of my sincere regret at the delay, and to offer my best compliments to my beautiful cousins.' Then came one or two inflated and pedantic paragraphs, and the letter was subscribed

'Respectfully yours,

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