In fact, I was being more cautious than was necessary. There was no telegraph in those days to overtake the fugitive,41 and even if there had been, and the Strackenzians had been silly enough to use it, no one in Germany would have had much time for me. While I was sneaking from one Prussian hedge to another with my bag of loot, Europe was beginning to erupt in the greatest convulsion she had known since Napoleon died. The great revolts, of which I had heard a murmur from Rudi, were about to burst on an astonished world: they had begun in Italy, where the excitable spaghettis were in a ferment; soon Metternich would be scuttling from Vienna; the French had proclaimed yet another republic; Berlin would see the barricades up within a month, and Lola’s old leaping-partner, Ludwig, would shortly be bound for the knacker’s yard. I knew nothing of all these things, of course, and I take some pride in the fact that while thrones were toppling and governments melting away overnight, I was heading for home with a set of crown jewels. There’s a moral there, I think, if I could only work out what it was.

Possibly it doesn’t apply only to me, either. You will recall that while the continent was falling apart, old England went her way without revolutions or disturbances beyond a few workers’ agitations. We like to think we are above that sort of thing, of course; the Englishman, however miserably off he is, supposes that he’s a free man, poor fool, and pities the unhappy foreigners raging against their rulers. And his rulers, of course, trade on that feeling, and keep him underfoot while assuring him that Britons never shall be slaves. Mark you, our populace may be wiser than it knows, for so far as I can see revolutions never benefited the ordinary folk one bit; they have to work just as hard and starve just as thin as ever. All the good they may get from rebellion is perhaps a bit of loot and rape at the time—and our English peasantry doesn’t seem to go in for that sort of thing at home, possibly because they’re mostly married men with responsibilities.

Anyway, the point I’m making is that I’ve no doubt the revolts of ’48 did England a bit of good—by keeping out of them and making money. And that, as you’ve gathered, was the intention of H. Flashman, Esq., also.