man. "Let me only get out of this," I think were the muttered words
I used, "and no more 'sport' for me." Providence closed on the
offer, and did let me get out of it. True, it was a complicated
"get out," involving a broken skylight and three gas globes, two
hours in a coal cellar, and a sovereign to a potman for the loan of
an ulster; and when at last, secure in my chamber, I took stock of
myself--what was left of me,--I could not but reflect that
Providence might have done the job neater. Yet I experienced no
desire to escape the terms of the covenant; my inclining for the
future was towards a life of simplicity.

Accordingly, I cast about for a new character, and found one to suit
me. The German professor was becoming popular as a hero about this
period. He wore his hair long and was otherwise untidy, but he had
"a heart of steel," occasionally of gold. The majority of folks in
the book, judging him from his exterior together with his
conversation--in broken English, dealing chiefly with his dead
mother and his little sister Lisa,--dubbed him uninteresting, but
then they did not know about the heart. His chief possession was a
lame dog which he had rescued from a brutal mob; and when he was not
talking broken English he was nursing this dog.

But his speciality was stopping runaway horses, thereby saving the
heroine's life. This, combined with the broken English and the dog,
rendered him irresistible.

He seemed a peaceful, amiable sort of creature, and I decided to try
him. I could not of course be a German professor, but I could, and
did, wear my hair long in spite of much public advice to the
contrary, voiced chiefly by small boys. I endeavoured to obtain