driven over the frontier and were making their way through Germany to France, to disguise himself as an ill-starred champion of freedom, and he subsequently found his way to the Foreign Legion in Algeria.  On the way home from the gathering, Degelow, whom I was to meet in a few weeks, proposed a ‘truce.’  This was a device which, if it was accepted, as it was in this case, enabled the future combatants to entertain and talk to one another, which was otherwise most strictly forbidden.  We wandered back to the town arm-in-arm; with chivalrous tenderness my interesting and formidable opponent declared that he was delighted at the prospect of crossing swords with me in a few weeks’ time; that he regarded it as an honour and a pleasure, as he was fond of me and respected me for my valorous conduct.  Seldom has any personal success flattered me more.  We embraced, and amid protestations which, owing to a certain dignity about them, acquired a significance I can never forget, we parted.  He informed me that he must first pay a visit to Jena, where he had an appointment to fight a duel.  A week later the news of his death reached Leipzig; he had been mortally wounded in the duel at Jena.

I felt as if I were living in a dream, out of which I was aroused by the announcement of my encounter with Tischer.  Though he was a first-rate and vigorous fighter, he had been chosen by our chiefs for my first passage of arms because he was fairly short.  In spite of being unable to feel any great confidence in my hastily acquired and little practised skill in fencing, I looked forward to this my first duel with a light heart.  Although it was against the rules, I never dreamed of telling the authorities that I was suffering from a slight rash which I had caught at that time, and which I was informed made wounds so dangerous that if it were reported it would postpone the meeting, in spite of the fact that I was modest enough to be prepared for wounds.  I was sent for at ten in the morning, and left home smiling to think what my mother and sisters would say if in a few hours I were brought back in the alarming state I anticipated.  My chief, Herr v.  Schonfeld, was a pleasant, quiet sort of man, who lived on the marsh.  When I reached his house, he leant out of the window with his pipe in his mouth, and greeted me with the words:  ’You can go home, my lad, it is all off; Tischer is in hospital.’  When I got upstairs I found several ‘leading men’ assembled, from whom I learned that Tischer had got very drunk the night before, and had in consequence laid himself open to the most outrageous treatment by the inhabitants of a house of ill-fame.  He was terribly hurt, and had been taken by the police in the first instance to the hospital.  This inevitably meant rustication, and, above all, expulsion from the academic association to which he belonged.