no good, and it nearly drove me mad! I sprang out of bed, and then
I found out the trick: but how Laender grinned! he was swollen and
red in the face with his mirth."

"Do you play such jokes on your estate?" inquired Otto, addressing
himself to Wilhelm.

"No, not such refined ones!" returned the Kammerjunker; "perhaps a
piece of wood, or a silly mask, is laid in your bed. Miss Sophie
gives us other clever things for amusement--tableaux and the magic-lantern.
I was once of the party. Yes, what was it I represented? Ah, I played,
Heaven help me! King Cyrus: had a paper crown on my head, and Miss
Sophie's cloak about me, the wrong side turned outward, for it is
lined with sable. I looked like Satan!"

The steamboat passengers were summoned on board, the company went
down to the vessel, and soon it was cutting through the waves of
the Belt.



CHAPTER VIII

"See now, Funen signifieth _fine_,
And much in that word lies;
For Funen is the garden fine,
Where Denmark glads its eyes."

The nakedness which the last aspect of Zealand presents occasions
one to be doubly struck by the affluent abundance and luxuriance