were admitted ad deliberandum. On returning home, the Commissioner found in the saloon a large despatch which had fallen out of the pocket of Von Hoax: this, he was at first surprised to discover, was nothing but a sheet of blank paper. However, on recollecting himself, “no doubt,” said he, “in times of rebellion ink is not safe: no doubt some important intelligence is concealed in this sheet of white paper, which some mysterious chemical preparation must reveal.” So saying, he sealed up the despatch, sent it off by an estafette, and charged it in a supplementary note of expenses to the council.
Meantime the newspapers arrived from the capital, but they said not a word of the rebellion; in fact they were more than usually dull, not containing even a lie of much interest. All this however the Commissioner ascribed to the prudential policy which their own safety dictated to the editors in times of rebellion; and the longer the silence lasted so much the more critical (it was inferred) must be the state of affairs; and so much the more prodigious that accumulating arrear of great events which any decisive blow would open upon them. At length, when the general patience began to give way, a newspaper arrived, which, under the head of domestic intelligence, communicated the following anecdote:—
“A curious hoax has been played off on a certain loyal and ancient borough town not a hundred miles from the little river P. On the accession of our present gracious prince, and before his person was generally known to his subjects, a wager of large amount was laid by a certain Mr. Von Holster, who had been a gentleman of the bed-chamber to his late highness, that he would succeed in passing himself off upon the whole town and corporation in question for the new sovereign. Having paved the way for his own success by a previous communication through a clerk in the house of W and Co., he departed on his errand, attended by an agent for the parties who betted against him. This agent bore the name of Von Hoax; and, by his report, the wager has been adjudged to Von Holster as brilliantly won. Thus far all was well; what follows however, is still better. Some time ago a young lady of large fortune, and still larger expectations, on a visit to the capital, had met with Mr. Von. H., and had clandestinely formed an acquaintance which had ripened into a strong attachment. The gentleman however had no fortune, or none which corresponded to the expectations of the lady’s family. Under these circumstances, the lady (despairing in any other way of obtaining her father’s consent) agreed that in connexion with his scheme for winning the wager he should attempt another, more interesting to them both: in pursuance of which arrangement, he
