ordeal, with his reputation raised rather than
lowered.

We leave the case we have been stating,
beset, as we found it, with uncertainty. But,
it is certain that either public or private
interests have suffered. Either the state has
suffered, or a citizen of the state has suffered
a miscarriage of justice, by the decision at
which the grand jury arrived on grounds
which never have been stated. We could
detail many other cases leading to the same
conclusion. Few readers indeed will fail to
have some such in their recollection. As set-
off, can there be shown one instance in which,
during the present generation, the secrecy and
irresponsibility of the grand jury tribunal have
served as a help to justice?

ROYALLY "HARD UP."

THE scene is at a pleasant town looking
Rhineward, whither chiefly resort valetudinarians
to drink of the famous healing spring
found there. It looks lonely enough now,
for the season is over. It was over the last
day of last month, and now the company have
all departed. Table d'hôtes have shrunk and
dwindled away, and no longer does neat-
handed Phyllis fill for you the red Bohemian
goblet at the spring. The grand orchestra,
who all these frosty mornings back have been
playing to the drinkers at seven o'clock—
dismal al fresco it was!—have departed on
furlough till spring season shall come round
again. Piteous sight it was, truly, to behold
violinists bravely pressing frost-nipped fore-
fingers on the sharp string, or flautist, blue
with cold, discoursing shivering music from
his instrument. Yet, high perched in their
painted pagoda (how tawdry it looked those
bare, frosty mornings!) they valiantly played
out that last day of the season, to an audience,
say, of not more than two dyspeptics. How
sick must they have grown of water-drinking
that hard-worked orchestra; sick of the
frosty seven o'clock performance; of the mid-
day kurhaus performance; of the opera
performance at night; of the Sunday performance
in the great dom; of rehearsal at spare
moments; of concert, of ball, where they too
must find the music. Sick, too, of the black
ammunition-cart that bore about their stringed
and wind potentialities from garden to
theatre, from theatre to kurhaus, and from
kurhaus to theatre back again.

Innkeepers' occupation gone, too—none
coming to them, save transit travellers; birds
of passage that bring no profit, and are gone
in the morning. Only one dyspeptic lingers
on, and daily toddles down to fill his tumbler
at the Lion's mouth, vainly hoping against hope
that it may do him good. One other lingers
on, too, being money-bound, as it may be, and
cruelly chafed waiting for "that remittance."
Which remittance he has now waited for this
fortnight back. The two last men—the
money-bound and dyspeptic—cross each
other many times in their weary up and
down walk beneath the colonnade. The
kurhaus reading-saal—grateful retreat of a
sultry noon-day, when the town, in its best,
is gathered in the garden below, coffee sipping
and hearkening to the Harmonie: that
lounging resource, with its hundred
newspapers and roomy sofas—has passed away
utterly with the end of the month. It is
pitilessly closed. No official cognisance is taken
of derelict sojourners; they having no business
to be there after the season. The ball-room
—great white chamber with shining oaken
floor—has begun to gather dust already, and
looks mournful and melancholy, as a ball
room out of work. The theatre is striving
hard to keep open, playing light German
comedy to an audience of at least thirty
people. So let the contemplative man—
money-bound or dyspeptic—find his recreation
in looking forth from coffee-room windows,
or else in open street studying shop-window
treasures—alack! studied many times before—
or else, in solitary promenade along the fountain
piazza aforesaid. It was a miserable,
lonely, dispiriting, suicidal slough of despond
that watering-place past its season!

So those two last men found it without
doubt, dragging on life wearily; till, one
morning, dyspeptic was missed at his accustomed
seat (a favourite green garden-chair),
and was discovered to have passed away
gently per early train. A deep discouragement,
this, to the money-bound; who had now,
in a manner, grown used to their crossing of
each other; though ever ignoring him strictly,
as was only fitting British feeling. Now was
he left sole survivor of the wreck: Selkirk of
that colonnade island: sole incumbent of the
spa, without cure of souls or bodies. Still
does he walk to and fro mechanically, waiting
that remittance, till even King's royal post-
man—entity with queer cap and soldier's
pouch by his side—comes to know him
familiarly, and shakes his head as he passes, in
token that he has nothing for him.

Meantime, from out the dull clouds of
monotony comes a ray of light: a plank is
cast to the shipwrecked, and a rumour, small
and attenuated at first, comes finally to take
such shape as this. The king cometh? Which
king, Bezonian? Who cometh? It is merry
monarch Friedrich—Fritz, as he hath been
sportively termed; Fritz of the tapering flask
and wired cork—now making royal progress
through his domains, and about to show
himself to his lieges of this place. Let the
ancients of the city come forth, chaunting Io
Pæans! and the sulphuretted streams change
to rivulets of milk and honey. Rather let
the Resident, or chief governor, providently
lay in good store of fitting beverage, even
Clicquot's, against the coming of so choice a
connoisseur. August Friedrich cometh, and
suddenly too: may be looked for within a
brief space. Already burgesses have met in
council to devise schemes of reception, how