This
combination leads of course to local disturbances of a somewhat noisy
character, and however entirely a sleepy man may in principle sympathise
with the causes of the noise, it becomes rather hard to bear after
midnight. The precise actors on the present occasion have, no doubt,
quarrelled or set up a _cafe_ before now, or perhaps have achieved both
results by taking the latter first; but there is reason to believe that
so long as the window of No. 53 is the seat of the chambermaid for the
time being, so long will that room be--as the landlord neatly expressed
it when a protest was made--_etwas unruhig_.
All Switzerland has been playing at soldiers for some time, and as we
left Berne the next morning, we saw three or four hundred Federal men of
war marching down the road which runs parallel with the rails. The three
officers at the head of the column were elderly and stout; moreover,
they were mounted, and that fact was evidently due rather to the
meekness of their chargers than to the grip of their own legs. When they
saw the train coming, they took prompt measures.
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