They never cared to have a garden at the back of their house, because the shrubbery might conceal thieves.

They fastened their door with bolts every evening at eight o'clock, and never went out without being obliged to, for fear of meeting dangerous people.
And nevertheless, on the 29th of April, 1859, at eleven o'clock in the morning, Nicholas Meiser was far away from his beloved home.

Gracious! how very far away for him--this honest burgher of Dantzic! He was traversing, with heavy tread, the promenade in Berlin, which bears the name of one of Alphonse Karrs' romances: _Sous les tilleuls._ In German: _Unter den Linden._ What mighty agency had thrown out of his bon-bon box, this big red bon-bon on two legs?
The same that led Alexander to Babylon, Scipio to Carthage, Godfrey de Bouillon to Jerusalem, and Napoleon to Moscow--Ambition! Meiser did not expect to be presented with the keys of the city on a cushion of red velvet, but he knew a great lord, a clerk in a government office, and a chambermaid who were working to get a patent of nobility for him.

To call himself Von Meiser instead of plain Meiser! What a glorious dream! This good man had in his character that compound of meanness and vanity which places lacqueys so far apart from the rest of mankind.

Full of respect for power, and admiration for conventional greatness, he never pronounced the name of king, prince, or even baron, without emphasis and unction.