There's no saying where it
may end. We are on the eve of a new epoch in the history of
Europe. I wouldn't miss it on any account.'
'Most interesting! most interesting!' I exclaimed. 'How I
wish I were going with you!'
'Come,' said he, with engaging brevity.
'How can I? I'm just going back to Cambridge.'
'You are of age, aren't you?'
I nodded.
'And your own master? Come; you'll never have such a chance
again.'
'When do you start?'
'To-morrow morning early.'
'But it is too late to get a passport.'
'Not a bit of it. I have to go to the Foreign Office for my
despatches. Dine with me to-night at my mother's - nobody
else - and I'll bring your passport in my pocket.'
'So be it, then. Billy Whistle [the irreverend nickname we
undergraduates gave the Master of Trinity] will rusticate me
to a certainty. It can't be helped. The cause is sacred.
I'll meet you at Lady Grey's to-night.'
We reached our destination at daylight on October 9. We had
already heard, while changing carriages at Breslau station,
that the revolution had broken out at Vienna, that the rails
were torn up, the Bahn-hof burnt, the military defeated and
driven from the town. William Grey's official papers, aided
by his fluent German, enabled us to pass the barriers, and
find our way into the city.
