I carried always with me a costly Turkish pipe, with a long stem of rose-wood. The head I carried in my pocket, carefully wrapped in soft silk; the stem was so contrived that I used it for a cane.

Without knowing what I did, whilst my gaze was riveted upon the glorious landscape, and my thoughts were busy with my home, I pushed my cane in among the dry leaves and roots of the palm. Suddenly it was caught by something which attracted my notice, and I tried to draw it out quickly. The costly stem broke, and I looked, half-vexed and half-curious, to know what had caused the mischief.

With difficulty I extricated from the roots of the palm an old leathern purse, the strings of which were tied round another old leathern article. A wondrously joyful sensation stirred in my soul at the sight of these objects. What they were I knew not, and yet they filled me with delight. But when I had cleansed them from the dirt and mud, when I held an old, richly-embroidered purse in my hand, and in the other article recognized a little, pointed cap, then arose from the glowing memories of my childhood the wonderful story of the inexhaustible purse of Fortunatus and his wishing cap. Then all creation beamed around me, and a chorus of voices from the sky seemed to say to me, “Thou art the new Fortunatus. Fortune has favored thee with her most valuable gifts, which have remained so long in the lap of earth, hidden from all mortal eyes.”

I laughed aloud like a child. I was firmly convinced that it was all true, and I danced round the palm, with the purse and cap in my hands, like a madman. “What are lotteries, stocks, and Rothschild’s speculations in comparison,” cried I; “do I wish for a million—I have to use my purse for a day, and my cap serves me better than the swiftest courier.”

My reason at last returned, and the madman became again the prudent, calculating merchant.

“Make a calculation, and produce an exact facit,” said the merchant. I seated myself again, with tolerable composure, at the foot of the palm. I wished calmly to prove the power of the purse, but my hand trembled as I put it into it. My fingers twitched convulsively, the fascination of the noblest of metals penetrated every nerve, and there, in my hand, before my wondering, blissful gaze, lay a hundred franc piece, with the new stamp, “Louis Philippe, Roi des FranÇais.” “O, Heaven! life is still fair,” I cried with Schiller’s Marquis Posa, and proved the power of my purse again and again, until the lap of my Turkish dress was covered with, hundred-franc-pieces.

My eyes feasted upon the treasure, my soul reveled in rapture.

“Prudence, prudence,” said the merchant within me. “May not the gold be false, or coined in the devil’s mint, and if you attempt to use it destroy your honor and reputation?” I tried it upon the leather of my sandals, and upon a little stone that I carried about with me for the purpose. It was pure Parisian coin. I put up my gold and filled my pockets with it. How blessed was I that I had withstood Van Delpt’s and Fleury’s entreaties. What was their happiness now—their manna of immortality? Dreams and froth! But I possessed the most desirable, glorious reality—my pockets full of gold, the inexhaustible purse, and the wonderful cap. Ay—the cap—its power must also be proved; I must know if by its art I could be this moment in the date forest on the Bosphorus, and the next in the cherry grove in Frankfort on the Main. In a flash I placed the little thing upon my head and thought of the Barbarossa town, and of the little balcony which looked into Kate’s room. What is a royal dispatch in comparison with the cap of Fortunatus? Without inconvenience from the elbows of neighbors, without the least change in my worthy person, I stood before the window through whose curtains I could look into Kate’s little room. I looked round me; the leaning tower, with its straight brother, were at my back; I was in my native town, the breeze of home stirred around me. Just then Kate stepped into the room. She carried a candle, was negligently dressed, and was humming an air from “Der FreischÜtz.” Was the girl altered, or had my too lively fancy deceived me, and presented to me at a distance as charming, what in reality seemed to me extremely vulgar? Where was the variety of charms that had so excited my love in Constantinople? Where was the airy grace that had surrounded the image of the absent one, as the air of Paradise encircles a Mohammedan houri? Kate was, in truth, no disagreeable-looking girl, but excessively commonplace; she had cheeks as fresh and round as an apple, pretty hair, a la giraffe, eyes whose color was rather undecided, and a form which, although it certainly was not wanting in roundness, did not move with exactly the grace of a dancing-master. I felt my heart grow cold at the sight of her. Heaven knows, my taste must have become wonderfully refined since I had been separated from her; knowledge of mankind and of the world must have sharpened my judgment. I never could love this creature—that was ineffaceably written in my soul. The purse and cap had given me the right to other claims than to be the son-in-law of the burgomaster of an obscure German village, and to demean myself by selling crÊpe de Chine and eau de Cologne.

“Away, away from here, to the fairest of the fair!” I cried, inspired. “Who will dispute with me the possession of the most beautiful woman upon the earth?”

In an instant I stood in a high vestibule, upon a marble floor; from the frescoed walls shone the light of a hundred tapers; the fragrance-laden air of the tropics was around me, and silver fountains were playing without in the moonlight. A great mirror opposite reflected my image. I was clad in black, in my finest European suit. I wore the breast-pin with the turquoise and brilliants, which I had bought two years before in Frankfort, and I knew that I was in the palace of the Duke of Silvio Cremonio, in Rio Janeiro, to whose beautiful daughter I was about to be introduced. All this the wonderful cap had arranged and declared to me.

Fifty lackeys, in rich livery, flew to my assistance. Two ushers opened the folding-doors, and at their announcement, “The Marquis della Mostarda!” I stepped into a brilliant saloon.

I was in a maze—the dresses of the ladies, which blazed with diamonds and other precious stones, dazzled me. What was the home-made splendor of my former employers, Steinlein & Son, which I had so often admired in my yearly visit to them, compared with this.

What was the finery of the richest merchant’s daughter compared with the splendor of the ladies of Rio Janeiro. I noticed that my entrance created a sensation. The ladies remained standing, looked at me and whispered among themselves. A little stout gentleman pushed forward from the crowd toward me. It was the duke. He wore a richly embroidered dress, with ribbon and star.

He spoke to me, bidding we welcome, and although he spoke Spanish, and I had never learned the language, I understood it perfectly and conversed in it as easily as in my mother tongue.

“You are a welcome guest, dear friend,” said the duke, and graciously pressed my band. “You have been introduced to me as an excellent and wealthy lord. Wealth is always well received; wealth is the key to every thing; wealth captivates all hearts; permit me to present you to my wife and daughter.”

Oh, what joy and rapture! The moment had arrived in which I should behold the fairest of the fair—the most beautiful woman now dwelling upon the earth! I saw her! Words cannot describe her, thought cannot picture her, only the imagination may venture to conceive of her.

Her voice was song—her glance a revelation of heaven.

The young rose had touched her cheeks with its soft tint; the enamel of the lily was upon her brow; her charming lips vied with crimson coral; her soft, blond hair waved in natural curls around her lovely face, and a Persian poet would have compared her graceful form to the gazelle. Beside the heavenly Angelica sat her mother, who would still have been called handsome, although there was about her an air of pride and haughtiness, which was wholly wanting in the daughter. I felt that, by the possession of the purse and wishing cap, I had become an entirely different man. How often I had trembled and been agitated as I stood in the antechamber of some great man, waiting to present my catalogue of wines for the firm of Steinlein & Son. What trouble I had taken to learn by heart the conditions of sale, that I might not stutter and stammer when they were asked for. And now I stood like a cool, self-possessed man of the world before a Brazilian duchess and her beautiful daughter, while the duke, her father, held my hand, which did not tremble in the least, and said, laying a significant stress upon his words, “The Marquis della Mostarda, the stranger whom the imperial secretary has so kindly introduced to us. He is just from Europe, and can tell you of the latest fashions. He is a man of great merit, and, as I well know, all means will be tried to induce him to take up his residence here in the capital.”

The stout nobleman moved on to make room for me by the ladies. The duchess beckoned me toward her, and her proud bearing gave way to a gracious condescension. She cast upon me a smiling glance, the tender expression of which I recognised at once from the descriptions in the best romances of the day. Then, pointing to her daughter, she observed, “The child there will listen only too willingly to stories of strange lands. She is wonderfully interested in geography. Talk with her—tell her where the most costly shawls are made, of Brabant laces, and Parisian bijouterie; tell her of your Italian home, of fire-breathing Vesuvius, of the Colosseum at Rome and the Lagune in Venice.”

The duchess turned from me to a pale young man, simply dressed, whose eyes had been fixed upon me whilst I stood by the lady with a singular, I might almost say sinister expression. His features were finely cut, but it could not escape me, with my knowledge of mankind, that there played about the corners of the mouth a contemptuous, scornful expression; just such as Hoffman always gives to his diabolical characters. It seemed to me that, looking through me, he saw the wishing-cap in my bosom, and the purse in my vest pocket. With an uncomfortable sensation I turned from him to the angel-face of the Princess Angelica. Her musical tones broke upon the ear like the singing in Schelble’s Cecilia-chorus. A whole opera by Rossini seemed to fill my senses as I listened to her; trills and roulades, crescendo and decrescendo, adagio and allegro. Now it sounded mournfully as in the cavatina from “Tancredi,” now, it exulted like the song of victory in the “Siege of Corinth.” O thou heavenly Angelica, thou wast at once the music and the director, and if I looked at thee, I seemed to see the Venus de Medici, dressed in tulle, embroidered with gold, sleeves À la Gigot, brilliants in her ears and upon her fingers, and rubies around her neck. Her remarks were acute and witty, while, at the same time, she raised her forget-me-not eyes so beseechingly to my face, that I imagined I read in them Goethe’s “Sorrows of Werther” and the loves of Herrman and Dorothea. She was curious about literature and the stage. Then I was in my element. I told her of Madame Sontag and Paganini; how the former, before her marriage, had sung variations for the violin, and the latter had played the charming song “cara mamena.” I told her of the public favorites, and hummed several airs for her from “Der Weiner in Berlin.” All this with an ease and grace which stamped the Marquis della Mostarda as a most accomplished cavalier. Then I spoke of the great lights in modern poetry—of Heine and Count Plateu Hallermande—how the former lavished the flowers of his fancy in lamentations over an unhappy love, and the latter poured himself forth in metrical praise of Friendship. She listened attentively; then suddenly she sighed deeply, so deeply that I was alarmed, and asked her in my confusion whether, in speaking of these renowned poets, I had said any thing unpleasant to her?

“No, no!” said she, mournfully. “I have had a German governante; I understand German, and read the German poets. Both poets of whom you speak are dear to me, particularly the touching Heine. But there are other glorious things in Germany beside art and poetry. Do you not love NÜremburg gingerbread, my lord marquis? As you have lived so long in Germany, you cannot be a stranger to this delicious production.”

“Alas! it is now two years since my father received a little package of it, and since that time all the delicacies of this country have lost their charm for me. In vain do I breathe this delightful atmosphere, its fragrance is nothing to that of this rich manufacture from Germany.”

The princess was silent; she appeared to sink into a profound melancholy. The duchess leaned over to us, and said, in a confidential, motherly tone, “What is the matter, children? You seem troubled, my lord marquis; and, Angelica, your eyes are swimming with tears.”

“We were speaking of NÜremburg gingerbread,” answered the princess, softly.

The duchess also seemed troubled, looked up to heaven, and said, “Yes, there is something truly divine in that NÜremburg gingerbread.”

“To-morrow I shall have the honor of bringing you some,” replied I, hastily, as I bethought me of the wishing-cap. At this moment I heard a scornful chuckling near me; I looked up, and the pale stranger stood at my side. He looked contemptuously down upon me, then turned his head, and seemed to whisper something to the air. This behavior I considered assumed to mock me; but I determined not to heed the man, for how could he harm me, the possessor of the cap and purse of Fortunatus.

Suddenly a stir arose in the assembly. Exclamations of astonishment were heard from all sides, and a lackey, richly dressed, pressed forward to where the ladies were, with a large silver plate of fresh NÜremburg gingerbread in his hands. I stood amazed; the stranger smiled contemptuously. A stranger, the lackey said, had brought him the salver in the anteroom, with the express command to carry it directly to the Duchess of Silvio Cremonio. As they were about to question him, he unaccountably disappeared. A quiet joy lighted up Angelica’s charming countenance, her mother glanced inquiringly at the stranger, who answered her by a bow of acknowledgment.

“Doctor Joannes, of Ingolstadt,” said the princess, introducing the stranger to me. “Doubtless we must thank him for the beautiful present, which has so enriched our fÊte to-night. He knows how to prize the treasures of his fatherland, and has foreseen, with his usual tact, that here also he would find friends who would value the productions of his country.”

The doctor bowed smilingly to both ladies. The impertinent fellow hardly looked at me as the princess introduced him. And he was only a doctor and I a marquis. “There is, fortunately, a to-morrow,” thought I; “and although your gingerbread may gratify the taste of the moment, their eyes will be dazzled, and their souls enraptured with the exquisite jewelry, that I intend purchasing for them to-morrow at Rundell & Bridges, in London.” There was witchcraft in the appearance of the gingerbread—that was beyond a doubt. I now observed the man more closely as he conversed with the ladies. His manner toward them was humble and modest, but the diabolical expression about the mouth was not to be concealed.

“Let us make up a party for a game of marriage,” said the glorious Angelica, in her most dulcet tones, as she took my arm. “There is the card saloon. The rest are busy with roulette and faro, but I love marriage beyond every thing.”

“It is also my favorite game,” I replied, full of love for this beautiful creature. “For its sake have I come hither from Constantinople upon the Bosphorus.”

The princess gave me a significant look, and secretly pressed my hand. As I looked up, I saw Joannes gazing upon me with a threatening expression of hate. He then leaned over Angelica, and smilingly whispered something in her ear. Impertinence! He imagined himself all-engrossing with his gingerbread. I gingled the one hundred-franc pieces in my pocket—and the sound made a favorable impression upon the duke’s daughter.

“Yes, we will play marriage,” said she, looking tenderly at me. “Come, marquis every moment of delay is lost.”

The doctor impatiently stamped his foot, but composed himself immediately, and said in his gentlest tone, “Only two seconds, your grace, I hear the horses now—they are here.”

In fact, at this moment a vehicle drove furiously into the court-yard. The snorting of fiery horses, and the voices of servants were heard. Several of the company hastened to the window, and Angelica moved toward it also.

“It is only my new Viennese chariot and Andalusian ponies,” said the doctor, humbly, but so loud, that every one could hear him. “Will you come and see my establishment? I am rather proud of my choice.”

“See,” growled an old gentleman, in a brilliant uniform, “who could see any thing in this Egyptian darkness.”

“I beg pardon,” said Joannes, gently; “I had forgotten that you are not accustomed to see in the dark. That is easily remedied.”

He snapped his fingers, and in a moment the whole court-yard was as light as day from the blaze of many hundred torches secured to the palace walls, and the equipage stood revealed in their brilliant glare. A unanimous and admiring exclamation burst from all present. But I cried scornfully, “That is nothing new, I have often seen it done by Professor Dohler—an electric machine and dry weather are all that is required.” No one listened to me. Every one broke out in praises of the magnificent equipage. Harnessed to it were four horses of wondrous beauty, of the true Andalusian breed. I was forced to confess that I had never seen any thing like them, and to hide my annoyance in admiration. And then the coach—an easier, more gorgeous or graceful thing of the kind could not well be imagined. It rested upon the springs like the shell of Venus upon the waves. It was worthy to contain the fairest of the fair. This seemed to strike the fair Angelica herself. She relinquished my arm for the doctor’s, and said, with a heavenly smile, “You are a happy man, doctor; I cannot imagine a more exquisite sensation, than the possession of such an equipage would create.”

“It is yours, adored one!” whispered Joannes tenderly, yet so loudly that he evidently intended I should hear. “The world has no treasure too great for the queen of all hearts.”

“O heavens! what generosity!” cried Angelica. She hastened from the doctor to her mother, to tell the joyful news.

I looked angrily out of the window, and saw how the doctor’s coachman performed the most wonderful manoeuvres, in the confined court-yard, with his fiery steeds. “Witchcraft! a real devil’s trick!” said I to myself, as I stepped back into the saloon, and walked hastily up and down.

I was jealous, furiously jealous—and what wonder? Did not Italian blood course through my veins—was I not the Marquis della Mostarda, from Naples? Thoughts of daggers and aqua toffana coursed through my brain when I looked at Joannes. Two persons in serious conversation passed me, a stately gentleman and an elderly lady. “They may say what they choose, but all is not right with the German doctor. He practices the Black Art, and ought to be thankful that the Holy Inquisition no longer exists. He gives presents here which an emperor could hardly afford, while he inhabits a miserable room in the suburbs, attended by no one but a dirty black poodle, who brings him his meals every day from the restaurateur’s.”

“And how every thing has altered here in this house since he arrived and paid his court to the beautiful Angelica,” continued the lady. “Before we saw poverty everywhere—the servants had no livery, and there had been no parties given since Olini’s time. Now the servants shine in rich embroidery, and at these rare entertainments, delicacies appear upon the table that one has hardly ever dreamed of, such as the gingerbread to-night, after Angelica had expressed her wonderful desire for it. We shall soon see the daughter of the Duke of Silvio Cremonio wife of Doctor Joannes.”

“No, no!” said the gentleman, thoughtfully shaking his head, “I thought so until to-night; but now I see that her parents have other views with regard to her.”

His glance rested upon me, and appearing to observe, for the first time, that I was near, he walked away. But I, knowing now that others regarded my rival as I did, prepared myself to contend with him for the incomparable Angelica.

——