TWO:Frederick, returning to Berlin from his six weeks campaign in Silesia, remained at home but three weeks. He had recklessly let loose the dogs of war, and must already have begun to be appalled in view of the possible results. His embassadors at the various courts had utterly failed to secure for him any alliance. England and some of the other powers were manifestly unfriendly to him. Like Frederick himself, they were all disposed to consult merely their own individual interests. Thus influenced, they looked calmly on to see how Frederick, who had thrown into the face of the young Queen of Austria the gage of battle, would meet the forces which she, with great energy, was marshaling in defense of her realms. Frederick was manifestly and outrageously in the wrong.Another adventurer, by the name of Fassman, who had written books, and who made much literary pretension, had come to Berlin and also got introduced to the Tabagie. He was in character very like Gundling, and the two could never agree. Fassman could be very sarcastic and bitter in his speech. One evening, as the king and his smoking cabinet were sitting enveloped in the clouds which they were breathing forth, and were all muddled with tobacco and beerfor the king himself was a hard drinkerFassman so enraged Gundling by some cutting48 remarks, that the latter seized his pan of burning peat and red-hot sand and dashed it into the face of his antagonist. Fassman, who was much the more powerful of the two, was seriously burned. He instantly grasped his antagonist, dragged him down, and beat him savagely with his hot pan, amidst roars of laughter from the beer-stupefied bacchanals.
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