His ears were all at once saluted with a noise from the next room, conveyed in distinct bounces against the wainscot; then a hoarse voice exclaimed, "Bring up the artillery--let Brutandorf's brigade advance--detach my black hussars to ravage the country--let them be new booted--take particular care of the spur-leathers--make a desert of Lusatia--bombard the suburbs of Pera--go, tell my brother Henry to pass the Elbe at Meissen with forty battalions and fifty squadrons--so ho, you Major-General Donder, why don't you finish your second parallel ?--send hither the engineer Shittenback--I'll lay all the shoes in my shop, the breach will be practicable in four-and-twenty hours--don't tell me of your works; you and your works be d--n'd." "Assuredly," cried another voice from a different quarter, "he that thinks to be saved by works is in a state of utter reprobation--I myself was a profane weaver, and trusted to the rottenness of works--I kept my journeymen and 'prentices at constant work, and my heart was set upon the riches of this world, which was a wicked work--but now I have got a glimpse of the new light--I feel the operations of grace--I am of the new birth--I abhor good works--I detest all working but the working of the Spirit--avaunt, Satan--O! how I thirst for communication with our sister Jolly." "The communication is already open with the Marche," said the first, "but as for thee, thou caitiff, who hast presumed to disparage my works, I'll have thee rammed into a mortar with a double charge of powder, and thrown into the enemy's quarters." This dialogue operated like a train upon many other inhabitants of the place; one swore he was within three vibrations of finding the longitude, when this noise confounded his calculation; a second, in broken English, complained he vas distorped in the moment of de proshection; a third, in the character of His Holiness, denounced interdiction, excommunication, and anathemas; and swore by St.Peter's keys, they should howl ten thousand years in purgatory, without the benefit of a single mass.

A fourth began to halloo in all the vociferation of a fox-hunter in the chase; and in an instant the whole house was in an uproar.
The clamour, however, was of a short duration.

The different chambers being opened successively, every individual was effectually silenced by the sound of one cabalistical word, which was no other than Waistcoat.

A charm which at once cowed the King of P----, dispossessed the fanatic, dumbfounded the mathematician, dismayed the alchemist, deposed the Pope, and deprived the squire of all utterance.
Our adventurer was no longer in doubt concerning the place to which he had been conveyed; and the more he reflected on his situation, the more he was overwhelmed with the most perplexing chagrin.

He could not conceive by whose means he had been immured in a madhouse; but he heartily repented of his knight-errantry, as a frolic which might have very serious consequences, with respect to his future life and fortune.
After mature deliberation, he resolved to demean himself with the utmost circumspection, well knowing that every violent transport would be interpreted into an undeniable symptom of insanity.