Alas! if the tempest had but sent the raft a little more east, we should have passed under Germany, under my beloved town of Hamburg, under the very street where dwelt all that I loved most in the world. Then only forty leagues would have separated us! But they were forty leagues perpendicular of solid granite wall, and in reality we were a thousand leagues asunder!

All these painful reflections rapidly crossed my mind before I could answer my uncle’s question.

“Well, now,” he repeated, “won’t you tell me how you have slept?”

“Oh, very well,” I said. “I am only a little knocked up, but I shall soon be better.”

“Oh,” says my uncle, “that’s nothing to signify. You are only a little bit tired.”

“But you, uncle, you seem in very good spirits this morning.”

“Delighted, my boy, delighted. We have got there.”