Page:Prose Specimens for Translation into German (1862).djvu/238

 and only permitted myself some repose in Rome. One day standing admiringly before the cascade of Tivoli, a young man suddenly taps me on the shoulders and asks:—

“Your pardon, are you not Mr. Johnson?”

“At your service!”

“Did you not in a duel shoot two barons Zitzerling, one at Weimar, the other at Vienna?”

“Your servant!”

“The barons Zitzerling were my brothers; I intend to avenge their death, and request you to fight with me yonder close by .”

“Very well !” said I and followed him. We took up the pistols and I shot him dead.

After this I went to Paris. But visiting the museum there on the second day, a young man joins me and inquires:—

“Your pardon, are you not Mr. Johnson?”

“At your service.”

“Did you not shoot in duel three barons Zitzerling, one at Weimar, one at Vienna, and one at Rome?”

“Your servitor!”

“The barons Zitzerling were my brothers; I intend to avenge their death and request you to see me with pistols this afternoon, at the stroke of three o’clock at the end of the Bois de Boulogne .”

“Very well,” said I, and rode there in the afternoon.