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| author | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 05:18:33 -0700 |
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| committer | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 05:18:33 -0700 |
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diff --git a/2183-h/2183-h.htm b/2183-h/2183-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..0e15e55 --- /dev/null +++ b/2183-h/2183-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,7912 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" +"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=utf-8" /> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" /> +<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Three Men on the Bummel, by Jerome K. Jerome</title> + +<style type="text/css"> + + p { text-indent: 1em; + margin-top: .25em; + margin-bottom: .25em; + } + + p.letter {text-indent: 0%; + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; } + + H1, H2 { + text-align: center; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + } + H3, H4 { + text-align: left; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; + } + body{margin-left: 20%; + margin-right: 20%; + text-align: justify; + } + + div.chapter {page-break-before: always; margin-top: 4em;} + + .blkquot {margin-left: 4em; margin-right: 4em;} /* block indent */ + + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + + .pagenum {position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: smaller; + text-align: right; + color: gray;} + + </style> +</head> +<body> +<div style='text-align:center'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THREE MEN ON THE BUMMEL ***</div> + +<h1>THREE MEN ON THE BUMMEL<br /> +by JEROME K. JEROME</h1> +<p style="text-align: center"><i>Illustrated by L. Raven Hill</i></p> +<p style="text-align: center">A NEW EDITION</p> +<p style="text-align: center">BRISTOL<br /> +<span class="smcap">J. W. Arrowsmith Ltd., Quay Street</span><br /> +LONDON<br /> +<span class="smcap">Simpkin, Marshall, Hamilton, Kent and Co. Limited</span><br /> +1914</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="smcap">to the gentle</span></p> +<p style="text-align: center">GUIDE</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="smcap">who lets me ever go +my own way, yet brings me right</span>—</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="smcap">to the laughter-loving</span></p> +<p style="text-align: center">PHILOSOPHER</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="smcap">who, if he has not +reconciled me to bearing the toothache</span><br /> +<span class="smcap">patently, at least has taught me the comfort that</span><br /> +<span class="smcap">this even will also pass</span>—</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="smcap">to the good</span></p> +<p style="text-align: center">FRIEND</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="smcap">who smiles when i +tell him of my troubles, and who</span><br /> +<span class="smcap">when i ask for help, answers only</span> “<span class="smcap">wait</span>!”—</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="smcap">to the grave-faced</span></p> +<p style="text-align: center">JESTER</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="smcap">to whom all life is +but a volume of old humour</span>—</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="smcap">to good master</span></p> +<p style="text-align: center"><b>Time</b></p> +<p style="text-align: center">THIS LITTLE WORK OF A POOR</p> +<p style="text-align: center">PUPIL</p> +<p style="text-align: center">IS DEDICATED</p> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>CHAPTER I</h2> + +<p class="letter"> +Three men need change—Anecdote showing evil result of deception—Moral +cowardice of George—Harris has ideas—Yarn of the Ancient +Mariner and the Inexperienced Yachtsman—A hearty crew—Danger +of sailing when the wind is off the land—Impossibility of sailing +when the wind is off the sea—The argumentativeness of Ethelbertha—The +dampness of the river—Harris suggests a bicycle tour—George +thinks of the wind—Harris suggests the Black Forest—George +thinks of the hills—Plan adopted by Harris for ascent of hills—Interruption +by Mrs. Harris.</p> + +<p>“What we want,” said Harris, “is a change.”</p> + +<p>At this moment the door opened, and Mrs. Harris put her head in to +say that Ethelbertha had sent her to remind me that we must not be late +getting home because of Clarence. Ethelbertha, I am inclined to +think, is unnecessarily nervous about the children. As a matter +of fact, there was nothing wrong with the child whatever. He had +been out with his aunt that morning; and if he looks wistfully at a +pastrycook’s window she takes him inside and buys him cream buns +and “maids-of-honour” until he insists that he has had enough, +and politely, but firmly, refuses to eat another anything. Then, +of course, he wants only one helping of pudding at lunch, and Ethelbertha +thinks he is sickening for something. Mrs. Harris added that it +would be as well for us to come upstairs soon, on our own account also, +as otherwise we should miss Muriel’s rendering of “The Mad +Hatter’s Tea Party,” out of <i>Alice in Wonderland</i>. +Muriel is Harris’s second, age eight: she is a bright, intelligent +child; but I prefer her myself in serious pieces. We said we would +finish our cigarettes and follow almost immediately; we also begged +her not to let Muriel begin until we arrived. She promised to +hold the child back as long as possible, and went. Harris, as +soon as the door was closed, resumed his interrupted sentence.</p> + +<p>“You know what I mean,” he said, “a complete change.”</p> + +<p>The question was how to get it.</p> + +<p>George suggested “business.” It was the sort of +suggestion George would make. A bachelor thinks a married woman +doesn’t know enough to get out of the way of a steam-roller. +I knew a young fellow once, an engineer, who thought he would go to +Vienna “on business.” His wife wanted to know “what +business?” He told her it would be his duty to visit the +mines in the neighbourhood of the Austrian capital, and to make reports. +She said she would go with him; she was that sort of woman. He +tried to dissuade her: he told her that a mine was no place for a beautiful +woman. She said she felt that herself, and that therefore she +did not intend to accompany him down the shafts; she would see him off +in the morning, and then amuse herself until his return, looking round +the Vienna shops, and buying a few things she might want. Having +started the idea, he did not see very well how to get out of it; and +for ten long summer days he did visit the mines in the neighbourhood +of Vienna, and in the evening wrote reports about them, which she posted +for him to his firm, who didn’t want them.</p> + +<p>I should be grieved to think that either Ethelbertha or Mrs. Harris +belonged to that class of wife, but it is as well not to overdo “business”—it +should be kept for cases of real emergency.</p> + +<p>“No,” I said, “the thing is to be frank and manly. +I shall tell Ethelbertha that I have come to the conclusion a man never +values happiness that is always with him. I shall tell her that, +for the sake of learning to appreciate my own advantages as I know they +should be appreciated, I intend to tear myself away from her and the +children for at least three weeks. I shall tell her,” I +continued, turning to Harris, “that it is you who have shown me +my duty in this respect; that it is to you we shall owe—”</p> + +<p>Harris put down his glass rather hurriedly.</p> + +<p>“If you don’t mind, old man,” he interrupted, “I’d +really rather you didn’t. She’ll talk it over with +my wife, and—well, I should not be happy, taking credit that I +do not deserve.”</p> + +<p>“But you do deserve it,” I insisted; “it was your +suggestion.”</p> + +<p>“It was you gave me the idea,” interrupted Harris again. +“You know you said it was a mistake for a man to get into a groove, +and that unbroken domesticity cloyed the brain.”</p> + +<p>“I was speaking generally,” I explained.</p> + +<p>“It struck me as very apt,” said Harris. “I +thought of repeating it to Clara; she has a great opinion of your sense, +I know. I am sure that if—”</p> + +<p>“We won’t risk it,” I interrupted, in my turn; +“it is a delicate matter, and I see a way out of it. We +will say George suggested the idea.”</p> + +<p>There is a lack of genial helpfulness about George that it sometimes +vexes me to notice. You would have thought he would have welcomed +the chance of assisting two old friends out of a dilemma; instead, he +became disagreeable.</p> + +<p>“You do,” said George, “and I shall tell them both +that my original plan was that we should make a party—children +and all; that I should bring my aunt, and that we should hire a charming +old château I know of in Normandy, on the coast, where the climate +is peculiarly adapted to delicate children, and the milk such as you +do not get in England. I shall add that you over-rode that suggestion, +arguing we should be happier by ourselves.”</p> + +<p>With a man like George kindness is of no use; you have to be firm.</p> + +<p>“You do,” said Harris, “and I, for one, will close +with the offer. We will just take that château. You +will bring your aunt—I will see to that,—and we will have +a month of it. The children are all fond of you; J. and I will +be nowhere. You’ve promised to teach Edgar fishing; and +it is you who will have to play wild beasts. Since last Sunday +Dick and Muriel have talked of nothing else but your hippopotamus. +We will picnic in the woods—there will only be eleven of us,—and +in the evenings we will have music and recitations. Muriel is +master of six pieces already, as perhaps you know; and all the other +children are quick studies.”</p> + +<p>George climbed down—he has no real courage—but he did +not do it gracefully. He said that if we were mean and cowardly +and false-hearted enough to stoop to such a shabby trick, he supposed +he couldn’t help it; and that if I didn’t intend to finish +the whole bottle of claret myself, he would trouble me to spare him +a glass. He also added, somewhat illogically, that it really did +not matter, seeing both Ethelbertha and Mrs. Harris were women of sense +who would judge him better than to believe for a moment that the suggestion +emanated from him.</p> + +<p>This little point settled, the question was: What sort of a change?</p> + +<p>Harris, as usual, was for the sea. He said he knew a yacht, +just the very thing—one that we could manage by ourselves; no +skulking lot of lubbers loafing about, adding to the expense and taking +away from the romance. Give him a handy boy, he would sail it +himself. We knew that yacht, and we told him so; we had been on +it with Harris before. It smells of bilge-water and greens to +the exclusion of all other scents; no ordinary sea air can hope to head +against it. So far as sense of smell is concerned, one might be +spending a week in Limehouse Hole. There is no place to get out +of the rain; the saloon is ten feet by four, and half of that is taken +up by a stove, which falls to pieces when you go to light it. +You have to take your bath on deck, and the towel blows overboard just +as you step out of the tub. Harris and the boy do all the interesting +work—the lugging and the reefing, the letting her go and the heeling +her over, and all that sort of thing,—leaving George and myself +to do the peeling of the potatoes and the washing up.</p> + +<p>“Very well, then,” said Harris, “let’s take +a proper yacht, with a skipper, and do the thing in style.”</p> + +<p>That also I objected to. I know that skipper; his notion of +yachting is to lie in what he calls the “offing,” where +he can be well in touch with his wife and family, to say nothing of +his favourite public-house.</p> + +<p>Years ago, when I was young and inexperienced, I hired a yacht myself. +Three things had combined to lead me into this foolishness: I had had +a stroke of unexpected luck; Ethelbertha had expressed a yearning for +sea air; and the very next morning, in taking up casually at the club +a copy of the <i>Sportsman</i>, I had come across the following advertisement:—</p> +<blockquote><p>TO YACHTSMEN.—Unique Opportunity.—“Rogue,” +28-ton Yawl.—Owner, called away suddenly on business, is willing +to let this superbly-fitted “greyhound of the sea” for any +period short or long. Two cabins and saloon; pianette, by Woffenkoff; +new copper. Terms, 10 guineas a week.—Apply Pertwee and +Co., 3A Bucklersbury.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>It had seemed to me like the answer to a prayer. “The +new copper” did not interest me; what little washing we might +want could wait, I thought. But the “pianette by Woffenkoff” +sounded alluring. I pictured Ethelbertha playing in the evening—something +with a chorus, in which, perhaps, the crew, with a little training, +might join—while our moving home bounded, “greyhound-like,” +over the silvery billows.</p> + +<p>I took a cab and drove direct to 3A Bucklersbury. Mr. Pertwee +was an unpretentious-looking gentleman, who had an unostentatious office +on the third floor. He showed me a picture in water-colours of +the <i>Rogue</i> flying before the wind. The deck was at an angle +of 95 to the ocean. In the picture no human beings were represented +on the deck; I suppose they had slipped off. Indeed, I do not +see how anyone could have kept on, unless nailed. I pointed out +this disadvantage to the agent, who, however, explained to me that the +picture represented the <i>Rogue</i> doubling something or other on +the well-known occasion of her winning the Medway Challenge Shield. +Mr. Pertwee assumed that I knew all about the event, so that I did not +like to ask any questions. Two specks near the frame of the picture, +which at first I had taken for moths, represented, it appeared, the +second and third winners in this celebrated race. A photograph +of the yacht at anchor off Gravesend was less impressive, but suggested +more stability. All answers to my inquiries being satisfactory, +I took the thing for a fortnight. Mr. Pertwee said it was fortunate +I wanted it only for a fortnight—later on I came to agree with +him,—the time fitting in exactly with another hiring. Had +I required it for three weeks he would have been compelled to refuse +me.</p> + +<p>The letting being thus arranged, Mr. Pertwee asked me if I had a +skipper in my eye. That I had not was also fortunate—things +seemed to be turning out luckily for me all round,—because Mr. +Pertwee felt sure I could not do better than keep on Mr. Goyles, at +present in charge—an excellent skipper, so Mr. Pertwee assured +me, a man who knew the sea as a man knows his own wife, and who had +never lost a life.</p> + +<p>It was still early in the day, and the yacht was lying off Harwich. +I caught the ten forty-five from Liverpool Street, and by one o’clock +was talking to Mr. Goyles on deck. He was a stout man, and had +a fatherly way with him. I told him my idea, which was to take +the outlying Dutch islands and then creep up to Norway. He said, +“Aye, aye, sir,” and appeared quite enthusiastic about the +trip; said he should enjoy it himself. We came to the question +of victualling, and he grew more enthusiastic. The amount of food +suggested by Mr. Goyles, I confess, surprised me. Had we been +living in the days of Drake and the Spanish Main, I should have feared +he was arranging for something illegal. However, he laughed in +his fatherly way, and assured me we were not overdoing it. Anything +left the crew would divide and take home with them—it seemed this +was the custom. It appeared to me that I was providing for this +crew for the winter, but I did not like to appear stingy, and said no +more. The amount of drink required also surprised me. I +arranged for what I thought we should need for ourselves, and then Mr. +Goyles spoke up for the crew. I must say that for him, he did +think of his men.</p> + +<p>“We don’t want anything in the nature of an orgie, Mr. +Goyles,” I suggested.</p> + +<p>“Orgie!” replied Mr. Goyles; “why they’ll +take that little drop in their tea.”</p> + +<p>He explained to me that his motto was, Get good men and treat them +well.</p> + +<p>“They work better for you,” said Mr. Goyles; “and +they come again.”</p> + +<p>Personally, I didn’t feel I wanted them to come again. +I was beginning to take a dislike to them before I had seen them; I +regarded them as a greedy and guzzling crew. But Mr. Goyles was +so cheerfully emphatic, and I was so inexperienced, that again I let +him have his way. He also promised that even in this department +he would see to it personally that nothing was wasted.</p> + +<p>I also left him to engage the crew. He said he could do the +thing, and would, for me, with the help of two men and a boy. If +he was alluding to the clearing up of the victuals and drink, I think +he was making an under-estimate; but possibly he may have been speaking +of the sailing of the yacht.</p> + +<p>I called at my tailors on the way home and ordered a yachting suit, +with a white hat, which they promised to bustle up and have ready in +time; and then I went home and told Ethelbertha all I had done. +Her delight was clouded by only one reflection—would the dressmaker +be able to finish a yachting costume for her in time? That is +so like a woman.</p> + +<p>Our honeymoon, which had taken place not very long before, had been +somewhat curtailed, so we decided we would invite nobody, but have the +yacht to ourselves. And thankful I am to Heaven that we did so +decide. On Monday we put on all our clothes and started. +I forget what Ethelbertha wore, but, whatever it may have been, it looked +very fetching. My own costume was a dark blue trimmed with a narrow +white braid, which, I think, was rather effective.</p> + +<p>Mr. Goyles met us on deck, and told us that lunch was ready. +I must admit Goyles had secured the services of a very fair cook. +The capabilities of the other members of the crew I had no opportunity +of judging. Speaking of them in a state of rest, however, I can +say of them they appeared to be a cheerful crew.</p> + +<p>My idea had been that so soon as the men had finished their dinner +we would weigh anchor, while I, smoking a cigar, with Ethelbertha by +my side, would lean over the gunwale and watch the white cliffs of the +Fatherland sink imperceptibly into the horizon. Ethelbertha and +I carried out our part of the programme, and waited, with the deck to +ourselves.</p> + +<p>“They seem to be taking their time,” said Ethelbertha.</p> + +<p>“If, in the course of fourteen days,” I said, “they +eat half of what is on this yacht, they will want a fairly long time +for every meal. We had better not hurry them, or they won’t +get through a quarter of it.”</p> + +<p>“They must have gone to sleep,” said Ethelbertha, later +on. “It will be tea-time soon.”</p> + +<p>They were certainly very quiet. I went for’ard, and hailed +Captain Goyles down the ladder. I hailed him three times; then +he came up slowly. He appeared to be a heavier and older man than +when I had seen him last. He had a cold cigar in his mouth.</p> + +<p>“When you are ready, Captain Goyles,” I said, “we’ll +start.”</p> + +<p>Captain Goyles removed the cigar from his mouth.</p> + +<p>“Not to-day we won’t, sir,” he replied, “<i>with</i> +your permission.”</p> + +<p>“Why, what’s the matter with to-day?” I said. +I know sailors are a superstitious folk; I thought maybe a Monday might +be considered unlucky.</p> + +<p>“The day’s all right,” answered Captain Goyles, +“it’s the wind I’m a-thinking of. It don’t +look much like changing.”</p> + +<p>“But do we want it to change?” I asked. “It +seems to me to be just where it should be, dead behind us.”</p> + +<p>“Aye, aye,” said Captain Goyles, “dead’s +the right word to use, for dead we’d all be, bar Providence, if +we was to put out in this. You see, sir,” he explained, +in answer to my look of surprise, “this is what we call a ‘land +wind,’ that is, it’s a-blowing, as one might say, direct +off the land.”</p> + +<p>When I came to think of it the man was right; the wind was blowing +off the land.</p> + +<p>“It may change in the night,” said Captain Goyles, more +hopefully “anyhow, it’s not violent, and she rides well.”</p> + +<p>Captain Goyles resumed his cigar, and I returned aft, and explained +to Ethelbertha the reason for the delay. Ethelbertha, who appeared +to be less high spirited than when we first boarded, wanted to know +<i>why</i> we couldn’t sail when the wind was off the land.</p> + +<p>“If it was not blowing off the land,” said Ethelbertha, +“it would be blowing off the sea, and that would send us back +into the shore again. It seems to me this is just the very wind +we want.”</p> + +<p>I said: “That is your inexperience, love; it <i>seems</i> to +be the very wind we want, but it is not. It’s what we call +a land wind, and a land wind is always very dangerous.”</p> + +<p>Ethelbertha wanted to know <i>why</i> a land wind was very dangerous.</p> + +<p>Her argumentativeness annoyed me somewhat; maybe I was feeling a +bit cross; the monotonous rolling heave of a small yacht at anchor depresses +an ardent spirit.</p> + +<p>“I can’t explain it to you,” I replied, which was +true, “but to set sail in this wind would be the height of foolhardiness, +and I care for you too much, dear, to expose you to unnecessary risks.”</p> + +<p>I thought this rather a neat conclusion, but Ethelbertha merely replied +that she wished, under the circumstances, we hadn’t come on board +till Tuesday, and went below.</p> + +<p>In the morning the wind veered round to the north; I was up early, +and observed this to Captain Goyles.</p> + +<p>“Aye, aye, sir,” he remarked; “it’s unfortunate, +but it can’t be helped.”</p> + +<p>“You don’t think it possible for us to start to-day?” +I hazarded.</p> + +<p>He did not get angry with me, he only laughed.</p> + +<p>“Well, sir,” said he, “if you was a-wanting to +go to Ipswich, I should say as it couldn’t be better for us, but +our destination being, as you see, the Dutch coast—why there you +are!”</p> + +<p>I broke the news to Ethelbertha, and we agreed to spend the day on +shore. Harwich is not a merry town, towards evening you might +call it dull. We had some tea and watercress at Dovercourt, and +then returned to the quay to look for Captain Goyles and the boat. +We waited an hour for him. When he came he was more cheerful than +we were; if he had not told me himself that he never drank anything +but one glass of hot grog before turning in for the night, I should +have said he was drunk.</p> + +<p>The next morning the wind was in the south, which made Captain Goyles +rather anxious, it appearing that it was equally unsafe to move or to +stop where we were; our only hope was it would change before anything +happened. By this time, Ethelbertha had taken a dislike to the +yacht; she said that, personally, she would rather be spending a week +in a bathing machine, seeing that a bathing machine was at least steady.</p> + +<p>We passed another day in Harwich, and that night and the next, the +wind still continuing in the south, we slept at the “King’s +Head.” On Friday the wind was blowing direct from the east. +I met Captain Goyles on the quay, and suggested that, under these circumstances, +we might start. He appeared irritated at my persistence.</p> + +<p>“If you knew a bit more, sir,” he said, “you’d +see for yourself that it’s impossible. The wind’s +a-blowing direct off the sea.”</p> + +<p>I said: “Captain Goyles, tell me what is this thing I have +hired? Is it a yacht or a house-boat?”</p> + +<p>He seemed surprised at my question.</p> + +<p>He said: “It’s a yawl.”</p> + +<p>“What I mean is,” I said, “can it be moved at all, +or is it a fixture here? If it is a fixture,” I continued, +“tell me so frankly, then we will get some ivy in boxes and train +over the port-holes, stick some flowers and an awning on deck, and make +the thing look pretty. If, on the other hand, it can be moved—”</p> + +<p>“Moved!” interrupted Captain Goyles. “You +get the right wind behind the <i>Rogue</i>—”</p> + +<p>I said: “What is the right wind?”</p> + +<p>Captain Goyles looked puzzled.</p> + +<p>“In the course of this week,” I went on, “we have +had wind from the north, from the south, from the east, from the west—with +variations. If you can think of any other point of the compass +from which it can blow, tell me, and I will wait for it. If not, +and if that anchor has not grown into the bottom of the ocean, we will +have it up to-day and see what happens.”</p> + +<p>He grasped the fact that I was determined.</p> + +<p>“Very well, sir,” he said, “you’re master +and I’m man. I’ve only got one child as is still dependent +on me, thank God, and no doubt your executors will feel it their duty +to do the right thing by the old woman.”</p> + +<p>His solemnity impressed me.</p> + +<p>“Mr. Goyles,” I said, “be honest with me. +Is there any hope, in any weather, of getting away from this damned +hole?”</p> + +<p>Captain Goyles’s kindly geniality returned to him.</p> + +<p>“You see, sir,” he said, “this is a very peculiar +coast. We’d be all right if we were once out, but getting +away from it in a cockle-shell like that—well, to be frank, sir, +it wants doing.”</p> + +<p>I left Captain Goyles with the assurance that he would watch the +weather as a mother would her sleeping babe; it was his own simile, +and it struck me as rather touching. I saw him again at twelve +o’clock; he was watching it from the window of the “Chain +and Anchor.”</p> + +<p>At five o’clock that evening a stroke of luck occurred; in +the middle of the High Street I met a couple of yachting friends, who +had had to put in by reason of a strained rudder. I told them +my story, and they appeared less surprised than amused. Captain +Goyles and the two men were still watching the weather. I ran +into the “King’s Head,” and prepared Ethelbertha. +The four of us crept quietly down to the quay, where we found our boat. +Only the boy was on board; my two friends took charge of the yacht, +and by six o’clock we were scudding merrily up the coast.</p> + +<p>We put in that night at Aldborough, and the next day worked up to +Yarmouth, where, as my friends had to leave, I decided to abandon the +yacht. We sold the stores by auction on Yarmouth sands early in +the morning. I made a loss, but had the satisfaction of “doing” +Captain Goyles. I left the <i>Rogue</i> in charge of a local mariner, +who, for a couple of sovereigns, undertook to see to its return to Harwich; +and we came back to London by train. There may be yachts other +than the <i>Rogue</i>, and skippers other than Mr. Goyles, but that +experience has prejudiced me against both.</p> + +<p>George also thought a yacht would be a good deal of responsibility, +so we dismissed the idea.</p> + +<p>“What about the river?” suggested Harris. +“We have had some pleasant times on that.”</p> + +<p>George pulled in silence at his cigar, and I cracked another nut.</p> + +<p>“The river is not what it used to be,” said I; “I +don’t know what, but there’s a something—a dampness—about +the river air that always starts my lumbago.”</p> + +<p>“It’s the same with me,” said George. “I +don’t know how it is, but I never can sleep now in the neighbourhood +of the river. I spent a week at Joe’s place in the spring, +and every night I woke up at seven o’clock and never got a wink +afterwards.”</p> + +<p>“I merely suggested it,” observed Harris. “Personally, +I don’t think it good for me, either; it touches my gout.”</p> + +<p>“What suits me best,” I said, “is mountain air. +What say you to a walking tour in Scotland?”</p> + +<p>“It’s always wet in Scotland,” said George. +“I was three weeks in Scotland the year before last, and was never +dry once all the time—not in that sense.”</p> + +<p>“It’s fine enough in Switzerland,” said Harris.</p> + +<p>“They would never stand our going to Switzerland by ourselves,” +I objected. “You know what happened last time. It +must be some place where no delicately nurtured woman or child could +possibly live; a country of bad hotels and comfortless travelling; where +we shall have to rough it, to work hard, to starve perhaps—”</p> + +<p>“Easy!” interrupted George, “easy, there! +Don’t forget I’m coming with you.”</p> + +<p>“I have it!” exclaimed Harris; “a bicycle tour!”</p> + +<p>George looked doubtful.</p> + +<p>“There’s a lot of uphill about a bicycle tour,” +said he, “and the wind is against you.”</p> + +<p>“So there is downhill, and the wind behind you,” said +Harris.</p> + +<p>“I’ve never noticed it,” said George.</p> + +<p>“You won’t think of anything better than a bicycle tour,” +persisted Harris.</p> + +<p>I was inclined to agree with him.</p> + +<p>“And I’ll tell you where,” continued he; “through +the Black Forest.”</p> + +<p>“Why, that’s <i>all</i> uphill,” said George.</p> + +<p>“Not all,” retorted Harris; “say two-thirds. +And there’s one thing you’ve forgotten.”</p> + +<p>He looked round cautiously, and sunk his voice to a whisper.</p> + +<p>“There are little railways going up those hills, little cogwheel +things that—”</p> + +<p>The door opened, and Mrs. Harris appeared. She said that Ethelbertha +was putting on her bonnet, and that Muriel, after waiting, had given +“The Mad Hatter’s Tea Party” without us.</p> + +<p>“Club, to-morrow, at four,” whispered Harris to me, as +he rose, and I passed it on to George as we went upstairs.</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>CHAPTER II</h2> + +<p class="letter"> +A delicate business—What Ethelbertha might have said—What +she did say—What Mrs. Harris said—What we told George—We +will start on Wednesday—George suggests the possibility of improving +our minds—Harris and I are doubtful—Which man on a tandem +does the most work?—The opinion of the man in front—Views +of the man behind—How Harris lost his wife—The luggage question—The +wisdom of my late Uncle Podger—Beginning of story about a man +who had a bag.</p> + +<p>I opened the ball with Ethelbertha that same evening. I commenced +by being purposely a little irritable. My idea was that Ethelbertha +would remark upon this. I should admit it, and account for it +by over brain pressure. This would naturally lead to talk about +my health in general, and the evident necessity there was for my taking +prompt and vigorous measures. I thought that with a little tact +I might even manage so that the suggestion should come from Ethelbertha +herself. I imagined her saying: “No, dear, it is change +you want; complete change. Now be persuaded by me, and go away +for a month. No, do not ask me to come with you. I know +you would rather that I did, but I will not. It is the society +of other men you need. Try and persuade George and Harris to go +with you. Believe me, a highly strung brain such as yours demands +occasional relaxation from the strain of domestic surroundings. +Forget for a little while that children want music lessons, and boots, +and bicycles, with tincture of rhubarb three times a day; forget there +are such things in life as cooks, and house decorators, and next-door +dogs, and butchers’ bills. Go away to some green corner +of the earth, where all is new and strange to you, where your over-wrought +mind will gather peace and fresh ideas. Go away for a space and +give me time to miss you, and to reflect upon your goodness and virtue, +which, continually present with me, I may, human-like, be apt to forget, +as one, through use, grows indifferent to the blessing of the sun and +the beauty of the moon. Go away, and come back refreshed in mind +and body, a brighter, better man—if that be possible—than +when you went away.”</p> + +<p>But even when we obtain our desires they never come to us garbed +as we would wish. To begin with, Ethelbertha did not seem to remark +that I was irritable; I had to draw her attention to it. I said:</p> + +<p>“You must forgive me, I’m not feeling quite myself to-night.”</p> + +<p>She said: “Oh! I have not noticed anything different; +what’s the matter with you?”</p> + +<p>“I can’t tell you what it is,” I said; “I’ve +felt it coming on for weeks.”</p> + +<p>“It’s that whisky,” said Ethelbertha. “You +never touch it except when we go to the Harris’s. You know +you can’t stand it; you have not a strong head.”</p> + +<p>“It isn’t the whisky,” I replied; “it’s +deeper than that. I fancy it’s more mental than bodily.”</p> + +<p>“You’ve been reading those criticisms again,” said +Ethelbertha, more sympathetically; “why don’t you take my +advice and put them on the fire?”</p> + +<p>“And it isn’t the criticisms,” I answered; “they’ve +been quite flattering of late—one or two of them.”</p> + +<p>“Well, what is it?” said Ethelbertha; “there must +be something to account for it.”</p> + +<p>“No, there isn’t,” I replied; “that’s +the remarkable thing about it; I can only describe it as a strange feeling +of unrest that seems to have taken possession of me.”</p> + +<p>Ethelbertha glanced across at me with a somewhat curious expression, +I thought; but as she said nothing, I continued the argument myself.</p> + +<p>“This aching monotony of life, these days of peaceful, uneventful +felicity, they appall one.”</p> + +<p>“I should not grumble at them,” said Ethelbertha; “we +might get some of the other sort, and like them still less.”</p> + +<p>“I’m not so sure of that,” I replied. “In +a life of continuous joy, I can imagine even pain coming as a welcome +variation. I wonder sometimes whether the saints in heaven do +not occasionally feel the continual serenity a burden. To myself +a life of endless bliss, uninterrupted by a single contrasting note, +would, I feel, grow maddening. I suppose,” I continued, +“I am a strange sort of man; I can hardly understand myself at +times. There are moments,” I added, “when I hate myself.”</p> + +<p>Often a little speech like this, hinting at hidden depths of indescribable +emotion has touched Ethelbertha, but to-night she appeared strangely +unsympathetic. With regard to heaven and its possible effect upon +me, she suggested my not worrying myself about that, remarking it was +always foolish to go half-way to meet trouble that might never come; +while as to my being a strange sort of fellow, that, she supposed, I +could not help, and if other people were willing to put up with me, +there was an end of the matter. The monotony of life, she added, +was a common experience; there she could sympathise with me.</p> + +<p>“You don’t know how I long,” said Ethelbertha, “to +get away occasionally, even from you; but I know it can never be, so +I do not brood upon it.”</p> + +<p>I had never heard Ethelbertha speak like this before; it astonished +and grieved me beyond measure.</p> + +<p>“That’s not a very kind remark to make,” I said, +“not a wifely remark.”</p> + +<p>“I know it isn’t,” she replied; “that is +why I have never said it before. You men never can understand,” +continued Ethelbertha, “that, however fond a woman may be of a +man, there are times when he palls upon her. You don’t know +how I long to be able sometimes to put on my bonnet and go out, with +nobody to ask me where I am going, why I am going, how long I am going +to be, and when I shall be back. You don’t know how I sometimes +long to order a dinner that I should like and that the children would +like, but at the sight of which you would put on your hat and be off +to the Club. You don’t know how much I feel inclined sometimes +to invite some woman here that I like, and that I know you don’t; +to go and see the people that <i>I</i> want to see, to go to bed when <i>I</i> +am tired, and to get up when <i>I</i> feel I want to get up. Two +people living together are bound both to be continually sacrificing +their own desires to the other one. It is sometimes a good thing +to slacken the strain a bit.”</p> + +<p>On thinking over Ethelbertha’s words afterwards, I have come +to see their wisdom; but at the time I admit I was hurt and indignant.</p> + +<p>“If your desire,” I said, “is to get rid of me—”</p> + +<p>“Now, don’t be an old goose,” said Ethelbertha; +“I only want to get rid of you for a little while, just long enough +to forget there are one or two corners about you that are not perfect, +just long enough to let me remember what a dear fellow you are in other +respects, and to look forward to your return, as I used to look forward +to your coming in the old days when I did not see you so often as to +become, perhaps, a little indifferent to you, as one grows indifferent +to the glory of the sun, just because he is there every day.”</p> + +<p>I did not like the tone that Ethelbertha took. There seemed +to be a frivolity about her, unsuited to the theme into which we had +drifted. That a woman should contemplate cheerfully an absence +of three or four weeks from her husband appeared to me to be not altogether +nice, not what I call womanly; it was not like Ethelbertha at all. +I was worried, I felt I didn’t want to go this trip at all. +If it had not been for George and Harris, I would have abandoned it. +As it was, I could not see how to change my mind with dignity.</p> + +<p>“Very well, Ethelbertha,” I replied, “it shall +be as you wish. If you desire a holiday from my presence, you +shall enjoy it; but if it be not impertinent curiosity on the part of +a husband, I should like to know what you propose doing in my absence?”</p> + +<p>“We will take that house at Folkestone,” answered Ethelbertha, +“and I’ll go down there with Kate. And if you want +to do Clara Harris a good turn,” added Ethelbertha, “you’ll +persuade Harris to go with you, and then Clara can join us. We +three used to have some very jolly times together before you men ever +came along, and it would be just delightful to renew them. Do +you think,” continued Ethelbertha, “that you could persuade +Mr. Harris to go with you?”</p> + +<p>I said I would try.</p> + +<p>“There’s a dear boy,” said Ethelbertha; “try +hard. You might get George to join you.”</p> + +<p>I replied there was not much advantage in George’s coming, +seeing he was a bachelor, and that therefore nobody would be much benefited +by his absence. But a woman never understands satire. Ethelbertha +merely remarked it would look unkind leaving him behind. I promised +to put it to him.</p> + +<p>I met Harris at the Club in the afternoon, and asked him how he had +got on.</p> + +<p>He said, “Oh, that’s all right; there’s no difficulty +about getting away.”</p> + +<p>But there was that about his tone that suggested incomplete satisfaction, +so I pressed him for further details.</p> + +<p>“She was as sweet as milk about it,” he continued; “said +it was an excellent idea of George’s, and that she thought it +would do me good.”</p> + +<p>“That seems all right,” I said; “what’s wrong +about that?”</p> + +<p>“There’s nothing wrong about that,” he answered, +“but that wasn’t all. She went on to talk of other +things.”</p> + +<p>“I understand,” I said.</p> + +<p>“There’s that bathroom fad of hers,” he continued.</p> + +<p>“I’ve heard of it,” I said; “she has started +Ethelbertha on the same idea.”</p> + +<p>“Well, I’ve had to agree to that being put in hand at +once; I couldn’t argue any more when she was so nice about the +other thing. That will cost me a hundred pounds, at the very least.”</p> + +<p>“As much as that?” I asked.</p> + +<p>“Every penny of it,” said Harris; “the estimate +alone is sixty.”</p> + +<p>I was sorry to hear him say this.</p> + +<p>“Then there’s the kitchen stove,” continued Harris; +“everything that has gone wrong in the house for the last two +years has been the fault of that kitchen stove.”</p> + +<p>“I know,” I said. “We have been in seven +houses since we were married, and every kitchen stove has been worse +than the last. Our present one is not only incompetent; it is +spiteful. It knows when we are giving a party, and goes out of +its way to do its worst.”</p> + +<p>“<i>We</i> are going to have a new one,” said Harris, +but he did not say it proudly. “Clara thought it would be +such a saving of expense, having the two things done at the same time. +I believe,” said Harris, “if a woman wanted a diamond tiara, +she would explain that it was to save the expense of a bonnet.”</p> + +<p>“How much do you reckon the stove is going to cost you?” +I asked. I felt interested in the subject.</p> + +<p>“I don’t know,” answered Harris; “another +twenty, I suppose. Then we talked about the piano. Could +you ever notice,” said Harris, “any difference between one +piano and another?”</p> + +<p>“Some of them seem to be a bit louder than others,” I +answered; “but one gets used to that.”</p> + +<p>“Ours is all wrong about the treble,” said Harris. +“By the way, what <i>is</i> the treble?”</p> + +<p>“It’s the shrill end of the thing,” I explained; +“the part that sounds as if you’d trod on its tail. +The brilliant selections always end up with a flourish on it.”</p> + +<p>“They want more of it,” said Harris; “our old one +hasn’t got enough of it. I’ll have to put it in the +nursery, and get a new one for the drawing-room.”</p> + +<p>“Anything else?” I asked.</p> + +<p>“No,” said Harris; “she didn’t seem able +to think of anything else.”</p> + +<p>“You’ll find when you get home,” I said, “she +has thought of one other thing.”</p> + +<p>“What’s that?” said Harris.</p> + +<p>“A house at Folkestone for the season.”</p> + +<p>“What should she want a house at Folkestone for?” said +Harris.</p> + +<p>“To live in,” I suggested, “during the summer months.”</p> + +<p>“She’s going to her people in Wales,” said Harris, +“for the holidays, with the children; we’ve had an invitation.”</p> + +<p>“Possibly,” I said, “she’ll go to Wales before +she goes to Folkestone, or maybe she’ll take Wales on her way +home; but she’ll want a house at Folkestone for the season, notwithstanding. +I may be mistaken—I hope for your sake that I am—but I feel +a presentiment that I’m not.”</p> + +<p>“This trip,” said Harris, “is going to be expensive.”</p> + +<p>“It was an idiotic suggestion,” I said, “from the +beginning.”</p> + +<p>“It was foolish of us to listen to him,” said Harris; +“he’ll get us into real trouble one of these days.”</p> + +<p>“He always was a muddler,” I agreed.</p> + +<p>“So headstrong,” added Harris.</p> + +<p>We heard his voice at that moment in the hall, asking for letters.</p> + +<p>“Better not say anything to him,” I suggested; “it’s +too late to go back now.”</p> + +<p>“There would be no advantage in doing so,” replied Harris. +“I should have to get that bathroom and piano in any case now.”</p> + +<p>He came in looking very cheerful.</p> + +<p>“Well,” he said, “is it all right? Have you +managed it?”</p> + +<p>There was that about his tone I did not altogether like; I noticed +Harris resented it also.</p> + +<p>“Managed what?” I said.</p> + +<p>“Why, to get off,” said George.</p> + +<p>I felt the time was come to explain things to George.</p> + +<p>“In married life,” I said, “the man proposes, the +woman submits. It is her duty; all religion teaches it.”</p> + +<p>George folded his hands and fixed his eyes on the ceiling.</p> + +<p>“We may chaff and joke a little about these things,” +I continued; “but when it comes to practice, that is what always +happens. We have mentioned to our wives that we are going. +Naturally, they are grieved; they would prefer to come with us; failing +that, they would have us remain with them. But we have explained +to them our wishes on the subject, and—there’s an end of +the matter.”</p> + +<p>George said, “Forgive me; I did not understand. I am +only a bachelor. People tell me this, that, and the other, and +I listen.”</p> + +<p>I said, “That is where you do wrong. When you want information +come to Harris or myself; we will tell you the truth about these questions.”</p> + +<p>George thanked us, and we proceeded with the business in hand.</p> + +<p>“When shall we start?” said George.</p> + +<p>“So far as I am concerned,” replied Harris, “the +sooner the better.”</p> + +<p>His idea, I fancy, was to get away before Mrs. H. thought of other +things. We fixed the following Wednesday.</p> + +<p>“What about route?” said Harris.</p> + +<p>“I have an idea,” said George. “I take it +you fellows are naturally anxious to improve your minds?”</p> + +<p>I said, “We don’t want to become monstrosities. +To a reasonable degree, yes, if it can be done without much expense +and with little personal trouble.”</p> + +<p>“It can,” said George. “We know Holland and +the Rhine. Very well, my suggestion is that we take the boat to +Hamburg, see Berlin and Dresden, and work our way to the Schwarzwald, +through Nuremberg and Stuttgart.”</p> + +<p>“There are some pretty bits in Mesopotamia, so I’ve been +told,” murmured Harris.</p> + +<p>George said Mesopotamia was too much out of our way, but that the +Berlin-Dresden route was quite practicable. For good or evil, +he persuaded us into it.</p> + +<p>“The machines, I suppose,” said George, “as before. +Harris and I on the tandem, J.—”</p> + +<p>“I think not,” interrupted Harris, firmly. “You +and J. on the tandem, I on the single.”</p> + +<p>“All the same to me,” agreed George. “J. +and I on the tandem, Harris—”</p> + +<p>“I do not mind taking my turn,” I interrupted, “but +I am not going to carry George <i>all</i> the way; the burden should +be divided.”</p> + +<p>“Very well,” agreed Harris, “we’ll divide +it. But it must be on the distinct understanding that he works.”</p> + +<p>“That he what?” said George.</p> + +<p>“That he works,” repeated Harris, firmly; “at all +events, uphill.”</p> + +<p>“Great Scott!” said George; “don’t you want +<i>any</i> exercise?”</p> + +<p>There is always unpleasantness about this tandem. It is the +theory of the man in front that the man behind does nothing; it is equally +the theory of the man behind that he alone is the motive power, the +man in front merely doing the puffing. The mystery will never +be solved. It is annoying when Prudence is whispering to you on +the one side not to overdo your strength and bring on heart disease; +while Justice into the other ear is remarking, “Why should you +do it all? This isn’t a cab. He’s not your passenger”: +to hear him grunt out:</p> + +<p>“What’s the matter—lost your pedals?”</p> + +<p>Harris, in his early married days, made much trouble for himself +on one occasion, owing to this impossibility of knowing what the person +behind is doing. He was riding with his wife through Holland. +The roads were stony, and the machine jumped a good deal.</p> + +<p>“Sit tight,” said Harris, without turning his head.</p> + +<p>What Mrs. Harris thought he said was, “Jump off.” +Why she should have thought he said “Jump off,” when he +said “Sit tight,” neither of them can explain.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Harris puts it in this way, “If you had said, ‘Sit +tight,’ why should I have jumped off?”</p> + +<p>Harris puts it, “If I had wanted you to jump off, why should +I have said ‘Sit tight!’?”</p> + +<p>The bitterness is past, but they argue about the matter to this day.</p> + +<p>Be the explanation what it may, however, nothing alters the fact +that Mrs. Harris did jump off, while Harris pedalled away hard, under +the impression she was still behind him. It appears that at first +she thought he was riding up the hill merely to show off. They +were both young in those days, and he used to do that sort of thing. +She expected him to spring to earth on reaching the summit, and lean +in a careless and graceful attitude against the machine, waiting for +her. When, on the contrary, she saw him pass the summit and proceed +rapidly down a long and steep incline, she was seized, first with surprise, +secondly with indignation, and lastly with alarm. She ran to the +top of the hill and shouted, but he never turned his head. She +watched him disappear into a wood a mile and a half distant, and then +sat down and cried. They had had a slight difference that morning, +and she wondered if he had taken it seriously and intended desertion. +She had no money; she knew no Dutch. People passed, and seemed +sorry for her; she tried to make them understand what had happened. +They gathered that she had lost something, but could not grasp what. +They took her to the nearest village, and found a policeman for her. +He concluded from her pantomime that some man had stolen her bicycle. +They put the telegraph into operation, and discovered in a village four +miles off an unfortunate boy riding a lady’s machine of an obsolete +pattern. They brought him to her in a cart, but as she did not +appear to want either him or his bicycle they let him go again, and +resigned themselves to bewilderment.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile, Harris continued his ride with much enjoyment. It +seemed to him that he had suddenly become a stronger, and in every way +a more capable cyclist. Said he to what he thought was Mrs. Harris:</p> + +<p>“I haven’t felt this machine so light for months. +It’s this air, I think; it’s doing me good.”</p> + +<p>Then he told her not to be afraid, and he would show her how fast +he <i>could</i> go. He bent down over the handles, and put his +heart into his work. The bicycle bounded over the road like a +thing of life; farmhouses and churches, dogs and chickens came to him +and passed. Old folks stood and gazed at him, the children cheered +him.</p> + +<p>In this way he sped merrily onward for about five miles. Then, +as he explains it, the feeling began to grow upon him that something +was wrong. He was not surprised at the silence; the wind was blowing +strongly, and the machine was rattling a good deal. It was a sense +of void that came upon him. He stretched out his hand behind him, +and felt; there was nothing there but space. He jumped, or rather +fell off, and looked back up the road; it stretched white and straight +through the dark wood, and not a living soul could be seen upon it. +He remounted, and rode back up the hill. In ten minutes he came +to where the road broke into four; there he dismounted and tried to +remember which fork he had come down.</p> + +<p>While he was deliberating a man passed, sitting sideways on a horse. +Harris stopped him, and explained to him that he had lost his wife. +The man appeared to be neither surprised nor sorry for him. While +they were talking another farmer came along, to whom the first man explained +the matter, not as an accident, but as a good story. What appeared +to surprise the second man most was that Harris should be making a fuss +about the thing. He could get no sense out of either of them, +and cursing them he mounted his machine again, and took the middle road +on chance. Half-way up, he came upon a party of two young women +with one young man between them. They appeared to be making the +most of him. He asked them if they had seen his wife. They +asked him what she was like. He did not know enough Dutch to describe +her properly; all he could tell them was she was a very beautiful woman, +of medium size. Evidently this did not satisfy them, the description +was too general; any man could say that, and by this means perhaps get +possession of a wife that did not belong to him. They asked him +how she was dressed; for the life of him he could not recollect.</p> + +<p>I doubt if any man could tell how any woman was dressed ten minutes +after he had left her. He recollected a blue skirt, and then there +was something that carried the dress on, as it were, up to the neck. +Possibly, this may have been a blouse; he retained a dim vision of a +belt; but what sort of a blouse? Was it green, or yellow, or blue? +Had it a collar, or was it fastened with a bow? Were there feathers +in her hat, or flowers? Or was it a hat at all? He dared +not say, for fear of making a mistake and being sent miles after the +wrong party. The two young women giggled, which in his then state +of mind irritated Harris. The young man, who appeared anxious +to get rid of him, suggested the police station at the next town. +Harris made his way there. The police gave him a piece of paper, +and told him to write down a full description of his wife, together +with details of when and where he had lost her. He did not know +where he had lost her; all he could tell them was the name of the village +where he had lunched. He knew he had her with him then, and that +they had started from there together.</p> + +<p>The police looked suspicious; they were doubtful about three matters: +Firstly, was she really his wife? Secondly, had he really lost +her? Thirdly, why had he lost her? With the aid of a hotel-keeper, +however, who spoke a little English, he overcame their scruples. +They promised to act, and in the evening they brought her to him in +a covered wagon, together with a bill for expenses. The meeting +was not a tender one. Mrs. Harris is not a good actress, and always +has great difficulty in disguising her feelings. On this occasion, +she frankly admits, she made no attempt to disguise them.</p> + +<p>The wheel business settled, there arose the ever-lasting luggage +question.</p> + +<p>“The usual list, I suppose,” said George, preparing to +write.</p> + +<p>That was wisdom I had taught them; I had learned it myself years +ago from my Uncle Podger.</p> + +<p>“Always before beginning to pack,” my Uncle would say, +“make a list.”</p> + +<p>He was a methodical man.</p> + +<p>“Take a piece of paper”—he always began at the +beginning—“put down on it everything you can possibly require, +then go over it and see that it contains nothing you can possibly do +without. Imagine yourself in bed; what have you got on? +Very well, put it down—together with a change. You get up; +what do you do? Wash yourself. What do you wash yourself +with? Soap; put down soap. Go on till you have finished. +Then take your clothes. Begin at your feet; what do you wear on +your feet? Boots, shoes, socks; put them down. Work up till +you get to your head. What else do you want besides clothes? +A little brandy; put it down. A corkscrew, put it down. +Put down everything, then you don’t forget anything.”</p> + +<p>That is the plan he always pursued himself. The list made, +he would go over it carefully, as he always advised, to see that he +had forgotten nothing. Then he would go over it again, and strike +out everything it was possible to dispense with.</p> + +<p>Then he would lose the list.</p> + +<p>Said George: “Just sufficient for a day or two we will take +with us on our bikes. The bulk of our luggage we must send on +from town to town.”</p> + +<p>“We must be careful,” I said; “I knew a man once—”</p> + +<p>Harris looked at his watch.</p> + +<p>“We’ll hear about him on the boat,” said Harris; +“I have got to meet Clara at Waterloo Station in half an hour.”</p> + +<p>“It won’t take half an hour,” I said; “it’s +a true story, and—”</p> + +<p>“Don’t waste it,” said George: “I am told +there are rainy evenings in the Black Forest; we may be glad of it. +What we have to do now is to finish this list.”</p> + +<p>Now I come to think of it, I never did get off that story; something +always interrupted it. And it really was true.</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>CHAPTER III</h2> + +<p class="letter"> +Harris’s one fault—Harris and the Angel—A patent +bicycle lamp—The ideal saddle—The “Overhauler”—His +eagle eye—His method—His cheery confidence—His simple +and inexpensive tastes—His appearance—How to get rid of +him—George as prophet—The gentle art of making oneself disagreeable +in a foreign tongue—George as a student of human nature—He +proposes an experiment—His Prudence—Harris’s support +secured, upon conditions.</p> + +<p>On Monday afternoon Harris came round; he had a cycling paper in +his hand.</p> + +<p>I said: “If you take my advice, you will leave it alone.”</p> + +<p>Harris said: “Leave what alone?”</p> + +<p>I said: “That brand-new, patent, revolution in cycling, record-breaking, +Tomfoolishness, whatever it may be, the advertisement of which you have +there in your hand.”</p> + +<p>He said: “Well, I don’t know; there will be some steep +hills for us to negotiate; I guess we shall want a good brake.”</p> + +<p>I said: “We shall want a brake, I agree; what we shall not +want is a mechanical surprise that we don’t understand, and that +never acts when it is wanted.”</p> + +<p>“This thing,” he said, “acts automatically.”</p> + +<p>“You needn’t tell me,” I said. “I know +exactly what it will do, by instinct. Going uphill it will jamb +the wheel so effectively that we shall have to carry the machine bodily. +The air at the top of the hill will do it good, and it will suddenly +come right again. Going downhill it will start reflecting what +a nuisance it has been. This will lead to remorse, and finally +to despair. It will say to itself: ‘I’m not fit to +be a brake. I don’t help these fellows; I only hinder them. +I’m a curse, that’s what I am;’ and, without a word +of warning, it will ‘chuck’ the whole business. That +is what that brake will do. Leave it alone. You are a good +fellow,” I continued, “but you have one fault.”</p> + +<p>“What?” he asked, indignantly.</p> + +<p>“You have too much faith,” I answered. “If +you read an advertisement, you go away and believe it. Every experiment +that every fool has thought of in connection with cycling you have tried. +Your guardian angel appears to be a capable and conscientious spirit, +and hitherto she has seen you through; take my advice and don’t +try her too far. She must have had a busy time since you started +cycling. Don’t go on till you make her mad.”</p> + +<p>He said: “If every man talked like that there would be no advancement +made in any department of life. If nobody ever tried a new thing +the world would come to a standstill. It is by—”</p> + +<p>“I know all that can be said on that side of the argument,” +I interrupted. “I agree in trying new experiments up to +thirty-five; <i>after</i> thirty-five I consider a man is entitled to +think of himself. You and I have done our duty in this direction, +you especially. You have been blown up by a patent gas lamp—”</p> + +<p>He said: “I really think, you know, that was my fault; I think +I must have screwed it up too tight.”</p> + +<p>I said: “I am quite willing to believe that if there was a +wrong way of handling the thing that is the way you handle it. +You should take that tendency of yours into consideration; it bears +upon the argument. Myself, I did not notice what you did; I only +know we were riding peacefully and pleasantly along the Whitby Road, +discussing the Thirty Years’ War, when your lamp went off like +a pistol-shot. The start sent me into the ditch; and your wife’s +face, when I told her there was nothing the matter and that she was +not to worry, because the two men would carry you upstairs, and the +doctor would be round in a minute bringing the nurse with him, still +lingers in my memory.”</p> + +<p>He said: “I wish you had thought to pick up the lamp. +I should like to have found out what was the cause of its going off +like that.”</p> + +<p>I said: “There was not time to pick up the lamp. I calculate +it would have taken two hours to have collected it. As to its +‘going off,’ the mere fact of its being advertised as the +safest lamp ever invented would of itself, to anyone but you, have suggested +accident. Then there was that electric lamp,” I continued.</p> + +<p>“Well, that really did give a fine light,” he replied; +“you said so yourself.”</p> + +<p>I said: “It gave a brilliant light in the King’s Road, +Brighton, and frightened a horse. The moment we got into the dark +beyond Kemp Town it went out, and you were summoned for riding without +a light. You may remember that on sunny afternoons you used to +ride about with that lamp shining for all it was worth. When lighting-up +time came it was naturally tired, and wanted a rest.”</p> + +<p>“It was a bit irritating, that lamp,” he murmured; “I +remember it.”</p> + +<p>I said: “It irritated me; it must have been worse for you. +Then there are saddles,” I went on—I wished to get this +lesson home to him. “Can you think of any saddle ever advertised +that you have <i>not</i> tried?”</p> + +<p>He said: “It has been an idea of mine that the right saddle +is to be found.”</p> + +<p>I said: “You give up that idea; this is an imperfect world +of joy and sorrow mingled. There may be a better land where bicycle +saddles are made out of rainbow, stuffed with cloud; in this world the +simplest thing is to get used to something hard. There was that +saddle you bought in Birmingham; it was divided in the middle, and looked +like a pair of kidneys.”</p> + +<p>He said: “You mean that one constructed on anatomical principles.”</p> + +<p>“Very likely,” I replied. “The box you bought +it in had a picture on the cover, representing a sitting skeleton—or +rather that part of a skeleton which does sit.”</p> + +<p>He said: “It was quite correct; it showed you the true position +of the—”</p> + +<p>I said: “We will not go into details; the picture always seemed +to me indelicate.”</p> + +<p>He said: “Medically speaking, it was right.”</p> + +<p>“Possibly,” I said, “for a man who rode in nothing +but his bones. I only know that I tried it myself, and that to +a man who wore flesh it was agony. Every time you went over a +stone or a rut it nipped you; it was like riding on an irritable lobster. +You rode that for a month.”</p> + +<p>“I thought it only right to give it a fair trial,” he +answered.</p> + +<p>I said: “You gave your family a fair trial also; if you will +allow me the use of slang. Your wife told me that never in the +whole course of your married life had she known you so bad tempered, +so un-Christian like, as you were that month. Then you remember +that other saddle, the one with the spring under it.”</p> + +<p>He said: “You mean ‘the Spiral.’”</p> + +<p>I said: “I mean the one that jerked you up and down like a +Jack-in-the-box; sometimes you came down again in the right place, and +sometimes you didn’t. I am not referring to these matters +merely to recall painful memories, but I want to impress you with the +folly of trying experiments at your time of life.”</p> + +<p>He said. “I wish you wouldn’t harp so much on my +age. A man at thirty-four—”</p> + +<p>“A man at what?”</p> + +<p>He said: “If you don’t want the thing, don’t have +it. If your machine runs away with you down a mountain, and you +and George get flung through a church roof, don’t blame me.”</p> + +<p>“I cannot promise for George,” I said; “a little +thing will sometimes irritate him, as you know. If such an accident +as you suggest happen, he may be cross, but I will undertake to explain +to him that it was not your fault.”</p> + +<p>“Is the thing all right?” he asked.</p> + +<p>“The tandem,” I replied, “is well.”</p> + +<p>He said: “Have you overhauled it?”</p> + +<p>I said: “I have not, nor is anyone else going to overhaul it. +The thing is now in working order, and it is going to remain in working +order till we start.”</p> + +<p>I have had experience of this “overhauling.” There +was a man at Folkestone; I used to meet him on the Lees. He proposed +one evening we should go for a long bicycle ride together on the following +day, and I agreed. I got up early, for me; I made an effort, and +was pleased with myself. He came half an hour late: I was waiting +for him in the garden. It was a lovely day. He said:—</p> + +<p>“That’s a good-looking machine of yours. How does +it run?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, like most of them!” I answered; “easily enough +in the morning; goes a little stiffly after lunch.”</p> + +<p>He caught hold of it by the front wheel and the fork and shook it +violently.</p> + +<p>I said: “Don’t do that; you’ll hurt it.”</p> + +<p>I did not see why he should shake it; it had not done anything to +him. Besides, if it wanted shaking, I was the proper person to +shake it. I felt much as I should had he started whacking my dog.</p> + +<p>He said: “This front wheel wobbles.”</p> + +<p>I said: “It doesn’t if you don’t wobble it.” +It didn’t wobble, as a matter of fact—nothing worth calling +a wobble.</p> + +<p>He said: “This is dangerous; have you got a screw-hammer?”</p> + +<p>I ought to have been firm, but I thought that perhaps he really did +know something about the business. I went to the tool shed to +see what I could find. When I came back he was sitting on the +ground with the front wheel between his legs. He was playing with +it, twiddling it round between his fingers; the remnant of the machine +was lying on the gravel path beside him.</p> + +<p>He said: “Something has happened to this front wheel of yours.”</p> + +<p>“It looks like it, doesn’t it?” I answered. +But he was the sort of man that never understands satire.</p> + +<p>He said: “It looks to me as if the bearings were all wrong.”</p> + +<p>I said: “Don’t you trouble about it any more; you will +make yourself tired. Let us put it back and get off.”</p> + +<p>He said: “We may as well see what is the matter with it, now +it is out.” He talked as though it had dropped out by accident.</p> + +<p>Before I could stop him he had unscrewed something somewhere, and +out rolled all over the path some dozen or so little balls.</p> + +<p>“Catch ’em!” he shouted; “catch ’em! +We mustn’t lose any of them.” He was quite excited +about them.</p> + +<p>We grovelled round for half an hour, and found sixteen. He +said he hoped we had got them all, because, if not, it would make a +serious difference to the machine. He said there was nothing you +should be more careful about in taking a bicycle to pieces than seeing +you did not lose any of the balls. He explained that you ought +to count them as you took them out, and see that exactly the same number +went back in each place. I promised, if ever I took a bicycle +to pieces I would remember his advice.</p> + +<p>I put the balls for safety in my hat, and I put my hat upon the doorstep. +It was not a sensible thing to do, I admit. As a matter of fact, +it was a silly thing to do. I am not as a rule addle-headed; his +influence must have affected me.</p> + +<p>He then said that while he was about it he would see to the chain +for me, and at once began taking off the gear-case. I did try +to persuade him from that. I told him what an experienced friend +of mine once said to me solemnly:—</p> + +<p>“If anything goes wrong with your gear-case, sell the machine +and buy a new one; it comes cheaper.”</p> + +<p>He said: “People talk like that who understand nothing about +machines. Nothing is easier than taking off a gear-case.”</p> + +<p>I had to confess he was right. In less than five minutes he +had the gear-case in two pieces, lying on the path, and was grovelling +for screws. He said it was always a mystery to him the way screws +disappeared.</p> + +<p>We were still looking for the screws when Ethelbertha came out. +She seemed surprised to find us there; she said she thought we had started +hours ago.</p> + +<p>He said: “We shan’t be long now. I’m just +helping your husband to overhaul this machine of his. It’s +a good machine; but they all want going over occasionally.”</p> + +<p>Ethelbertha said: “If you want to wash yourselves when you +have done you might go into the back kitchen, if you don’t mind; +the girls have just finished the bedrooms.”</p> + +<p>She told me that if she met Kate they would probably go for a sail; +but that in any case she would be back to lunch. I would have +given a sovereign to be going with her. I was getting heartily +sick of standing about watching this fool breaking up my bicycle.</p> + +<p>Common sense continued to whisper to me: “Stop him, before +he does any more mischief. You have a right to protect your own +property from the ravages of a lunatic. Take him by the scruff +of the neck, and kick him out of the gate!”</p> + +<p>But I am weak when it comes to hurting other people’s feelings, +and I let him muddle on.</p> + +<p>He gave up looking for the rest of the screws. He said screws +had a knack of turning up when you least expected them; and that now +he would see to the chain. He tightened it till it would not move; +next he loosened it until it was twice as loose as it was before. +Then he said we had better think about getting the front wheel back +into its place again.</p> + +<p>I held the fork open, and he worried with the wheel. At the +end of ten minutes I suggested he should hold the forks, and that I +should handle the wheel; and we changed places. At the end of +his first minute he dropped the machine, and took a short walk round +the croquet lawn, with his hands pressed together between his thighs. +He explained as he walked that the thing to be careful about was to +avoid getting your fingers pinched between the forks and the spokes +of the wheel. I replied I was convinced, from my own experience, +that there was much truth in what he said. He wrapped himself +up in a couple of dusters, and we commenced again. At length we +did get the thing into position; and the moment it was in position he +burst out laughing.</p> + +<p>I said: “What’s the joke?”</p> + +<p>He said: “Well, I am an ass!”</p> + +<p>It was the first thing he had said that made me respect him. +I asked him what had led him to the discovery.</p> + +<p>He said: “We’ve forgotten the balls!”</p> + +<p>I looked for my hat; it was lying topsy-turvy in the middle of the +path, and Ethelbertha’s favourite hound was swallowing the balls +as fast as he could pick them up.</p> + +<p>“He will kill himself,” said Ebbson—I have never +met him since that day, thank the Lord; but I think his name was Ebbson—“they +are solid steel.”</p> + +<p>I said: “I am not troubling about the dog. He has had +a bootlace and a packet of needles already this week. Nature’s +the best guide; puppies seem to require this kind of stimulant. +What I am thinking about is my bicycle.”</p> + +<p>He was of a cheerful disposition. He said: “Well, we +must put back all we can find, and trust to Providence.”</p> + +<p>We found eleven. We fixed six on one side and five on the other, +and half an hour later the wheel was in its place again. It need +hardly be added that it really did wobble now; a child might have noticed +it. Ebbson said it would do for the present. He appeared +to be getting a bit tired himself. If I had let him, he would, +I believe, at this point have gone home. I was determined now, +however, that he should stop and finish; I had abandoned all thoughts +of a ride. My pride in the machine he had killed. My only +interest lay now in seeing him scratch and bump and pinch himself. +I revived his drooping spirits with a glass of beer and some judicious +praise. I said:</p> + +<p>“Watching you do this is of real use to me. It is not +only your skill and dexterity that fascinates me, it is your cheery +confidence in yourself, your inexplicable hopefulness, that does me +good.”</p> + +<p>Thus encouraged, he set to work to refix the gear-case. He +stood the bicycle against the house, and worked from the off side. +Then he stood it against a tree, and worked from the near side. +Then I held it for him, while he lay on the ground with his head between +the wheels, and worked at it from below, and dropped oil upon himself. +Then he took it away from me, and doubled himself across it like a pack-saddle, +till he lost his balance and slid over on to his head. Three times +he said:</p> + +<p>“Thank Heaven, that’s right at last!”</p> + +<p>And twice he said:</p> + +<p>“No, I’m damned if it is after all!”</p> + +<p>What he said the third time I try to forget.</p> + +<p>Then he lost his temper and tried bullying the thing. The bicycle, +I was glad to see, showed spirit; and the subsequent proceedings degenerated +into little else than a rough-and-tumble fight between him and the machine. +One moment the bicycle would be on the gravel path, and he on top of +it; the next, the position would be reversed—he on the gravel +path, the bicycle on him. Now he would be standing flushed with +victory, the bicycle firmly fixed between his legs. But his triumph +would be short-lived. By a sudden, quick movement it would free +itself, and, turning upon him, hit him sharply over the head with one +of its handles.</p> + +<p>At a quarter to one, dirty and dishevelled, cut and bleeding, he +said: “I think that will do;” and rose and wiped his brow.</p> + +<p>The bicycle looked as if it also had had enough of it. Which +had received most punishment it would have been difficult to say. +I took him into the back kitchen, where, so far as was possible without +soda and proper tools, he cleaned himself, and sent him home.</p> + +<p>The bicycle I put into a cab and took round to the nearest repairing +shop. The foreman of the works came up and looked at it.</p> + +<p>“What do you want me to do with that?” said he.</p> + +<p>“I want you,” I said, “so far as is possible, to +restore it.”</p> + +<p>“It’s a bit far gone,” said he; “but I’ll +do my best.”</p> + +<p>He did his best, which came to two pounds ten. But it was never +the same machine again; and at the end of the season I left it in an +agent’s hands to sell. I wished to deceive nobody; I instructed +the man to advertise it as a last year’s machine. The agent +advised me not to mention any date. He said:</p> + +<p>“In this business it isn’t a question of what is true +and what isn’t; it’s a question of what you can get people +to believe. Now, between you and me, it don’t look like +a last year’s machine; so far as looks are concerned, it might +be a ten-year old. We’ll say nothing about date; we’ll +just get what we can.”</p> + +<p>I left the matter to him, and he got me five pounds, which he said +was more than he had expected.</p> + +<p>There are two ways you can get exercise out of a bicycle: you can +“overhaul” it, or you can ride it. On the whole, I +am not sure that a man who takes his pleasure overhauling does not have +the best of the bargain. He is independent of the weather and +the wind; the state of the roads troubles him not. Give him a +screw-hammer, a bundle of rags, an oil-can, and something to sit down +upon, and he is happy for the day. He has to put up with certain +disadvantages, of course; there is no joy without alloy. He himself +always looks like a tinker, and his machine always suggests the idea +that, having stolen it, he has tried to disguise it; but as he rarely +gets beyond the first milestone with it, this, perhaps, does not much +matter. The mistake some people make is in thinking they can get +both forms of sport out of the same machine. This is impossible; +no machine will stand the double strain. You must make up your +mind whether you are going to be an “overhauler” or a rider. +Personally, I prefer to ride, therefore I take care to have near me +nothing that can tempt me to overhaul. When anything happens to +my machine I wheel it to the nearest repairing shop. If I am too +far from the town or village to walk, I sit by the roadside and wait +till a cart comes along. My chief danger, I always find, is from +the wandering overhauler. The sight of a broken-down machine is +to the overhauler as a wayside corpse to a crow; he swoops down upon +it with a friendly yell of triumph. At first I used to try politeness. +I would say:</p> + +<p>“It is nothing; don’t you trouble. You ride on, +and enjoy yourself, I beg it of you as a favour; please go away.”</p> + +<p>Experience has taught me, however, that courtesy is of no use in +such an extremity. Now I say:</p> + +<p>“You go away and leave the thing alone, or I will knock your +silly head off.”</p> + +<p>And if you look determined, and have a good stout cudgel in your +hand, you can generally drive him off.</p> + +<p>George came in later in the day. He said:</p> + +<p>“Well, do you think everything will be ready?”</p> + +<p>I said: “Everything will be ready by Wednesday, except, perhaps, +you and Harris.”</p> + +<p>He said: “Is the tandem all right?”</p> + +<p>“The tandem,” I said, “is well.”</p> + +<p>He said: “You don’t think it wants overhauling?”</p> + +<p>I replied: “Age and experience have taught me that there are +few matters concerning which a man does well to be positive. Consequently, +there remain to me now but a limited number of questions upon which +I feel any degree of certainty. Among such still-unshaken beliefs, +however, is the conviction that that tandem does not want overhauling. +I also feel a presentiment that, provided my life is spared, no human +being between now and Wednesday morning is going to overhaul it.”</p> + +<p>George said: “I should not show temper over the matter, if +I were you. There will come a day, perhaps not far distant, when +that bicycle, with a couple of mountains between it and the nearest +repairing shop, will, in spite of your chronic desire for rest, <i>have</i> +to be overhauled. Then you will clamour for people to tell you +where you put the oil-can, and what you have done with the screw-hammer. +Then, while you exert yourself holding the thing steady against a tree, +you will suggest that somebody else should clean the chain and pump +the back wheel.”</p> + +<p>I felt there was justice in George’s rebuke—also a certain +amount of prophetic wisdom. I said:</p> + +<p>“Forgive me if I seemed unresponsive. The truth is, Harris +was round here this morning—”</p> + +<p>George said: “Say no more; I understand. Besides, what +I came to talk to you about was another matter. Look at that.”</p> + +<p>He handed me a small book bound in red cloth. It was a guide +to English conversation for the use of German travellers. It commenced +“On a Steam-boat,” and terminated “At the Doctor’s”; +its longest chapter being devoted to conversation in a railway carriage, +among, apparently, a compartment load of quarrelsome and ill-mannered +lunatics: “Can you not get further away from me, sir?”—“It +is impossible, madam; my neighbour, here, is very stout”—“Shall +we not endeavour to arrange our legs?”—“Please have +the goodness to keep your elbows down”—“Pray do not +inconvenience yourself, madam, if my shoulder is of any accommodation +to you,” whether intended to be said sarcastically or not, there +was nothing to indicate—“I really must request you to move +a little, madam, I can hardly breathe,” the author’s idea +being, presumably, that by this time the whole party was mixed up together +on the floor. The chapter concluded with the phrase, “Here +we are at our destination, God be thanked! (<i>Gott sei dank</i>!)” +a pious exclamation, which under the circumstances must have taken the +form of a chorus.</p> + +<p>At the end of the book was an appendix, giving the German traveller +hints concerning the preservation of his health and comfort during his +sojourn in English towns, chief among such hints being advice to him +to always travel with a supply of disinfectant powder, to always lock +his bedroom door at night, and to always carefully count his small change.</p> + +<p>“It is not a brilliant publication,” I remarked, handing +the book back to George; “it is not a book that personally I would +recommend to any German about to visit England; I think it would get +him disliked. But I have read books published in London for the +use of English travellers abroad every whit as foolish. Some educated +idiot, misunderstanding seven languages, would appear to go about writing +these books for the misinformation and false guidance of modern Europe.”</p> + +<p>“You cannot deny,” said George, “that these books +are in large request. They are bought by the thousand, I know. +In every town in Europe there must be people going about talking this +sort of thing.”</p> + +<p>“Maybe,” I replied; “but fortunately nobody understands +them. I have noticed, myself, men standing on railway platforms +and at street corners reading aloud from such books. Nobody knows +what language they are speaking; nobody has the slightest knowledge +of what they are saying. This is, perhaps, as well; were they +understood they would probably be assaulted.”</p> + +<p>George said: “Maybe you are right; my idea is to see what would +happen if they were understood. My proposal is to get to London +early on Wednesday morning, and spend an hour or two going about and +shopping with the aid of this book. There are one or two little +things I want—a hat and a pair of bedroom slippers, among other +articles. Our boat does not leave Tilbury till twelve, and that +just gives us time. I want to try this sort of talk where I can +properly judge of its effect. I want to see how the foreigner +feels when he is talked to in this way.”</p> + +<p>It struck me as a sporting idea. In my enthusiasm I offered +to accompany him, and wait outside the shop. I said I thought +that Harris would like to be in it, too—or rather outside.</p> + +<p>George said that was not quite his scheme. His proposal was +that Harris and I should accompany him into the shop. With Harris, +who looks formidable, to support him, and myself at the door to call +the police if necessary, he said he was willing to adventure the thing.</p> + +<p>We walked round to Harris’s, and put the proposal before him. +He examined the book, especially the chapters dealing with the purchase +of shoes and hats. He said:</p> + +<p>“If George talks to any bootmaker or any hatter the things +that are put down here, it is not support he will want; it is carrying +to the hospital that he will need.”</p> + +<p>That made George angry.</p> + +<p>“You talk,” said George, “as though I were a foolhardy +boy without any sense. I shall select from the more polite and +less irritating speeches; the grosser insults I shall avoid.”</p> + +<p>This being clearly understood, Harris gave in his adhesion; and our +start was fixed for early Wednesday morning.</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>CHAPTER IV</h2> + +<p class="letter"> +Why Harris considers alarm clocks unnecessary in a family—Social +instinct of the young—A child’s thoughts about the morning—The +sleepless watchman—The mystery of him—His over anxiety—Night +thoughts—The sort of work one does before breakfast—The +good sheep and the bad—Disadvantages of being virtuous—Harris’s +new stove begins badly—The daily out-going of my Uncle Podger—The +elderly city man considered as a racer—We arrive in London—We +talk the language of the traveller.</p> + +<p>George came down on Tuesday evening, and slept at Harris’s +place. We thought this a better arrangement than his own suggestion, +which was that we should call for him on our way and “pick him +up.” Picking George up in the morning means picking him +out of bed to begin with, and shaking him awake—in itself an exhausting +effort with which to commence the day; helping him find his things and +finish his packing; and then waiting for him while he eats his breakfast, +a tedious entertainment from the spectator’s point of view, full +of wearisome repetition.</p> + +<p>I knew that if he slept at “Beggarbush” he would be up +in time; I have slept there myself, and I know what happens. About +the middle of the night, as you judge, though in reality it may be somewhat +later, you are startled out of your first sleep by what sounds like +a rush of cavalry along the passage, just outside your door. Your +half-awakened intelligence fluctuates between burglars, the Day of Judgment, +and a gas explosion. You sit up in bed and listen intently. +You are not kept waiting long; the next moment a door is violently slammed, +and somebody, or something, is evidently coming downstairs on a tea-tray.</p> + +<p>“I told you so,” says a voice outside, and immediately +some hard substance, a head one would say from the ring of it, rebounds +against the panel of your door.</p> + +<p>By this time you are charging madly round the room for your clothes. +Nothing is where you put it overnight, the articles most essential have +disappeared entirely; and meanwhile the murder, or revolution, or whatever +it is, continues unchecked. You pause for a moment, with your +head under the wardrobe, where you think you can see your slippers, +to listen to a steady, monotonous thumping upon a distant door. +The victim, you presume, has taken refuge there; they mean to have him +out and finish him. Will you be in time? The knocking ceases, +and a voice, sweetly reassuring in its gentle plaintiveness, asks meekly:</p> + +<p>“Pa, may I get up?”</p> + +<p>You do not hear the other voice, but the responses are:</p> + +<p>“No, it was only the bath—no, she ain’t really +hurt,—only wet, you know. Yes, ma, I’ll tell ’em +what you say. No, it was a pure accident. Yes; good-night, +papa.”</p> + +<p>Then the same voice, exerting itself so as to be heard in a distant +part of the house, remarks:</p> + +<p>“You’ve got to come upstairs again. Pa says it +isn’t time yet to get up.”</p> + +<p>You return to bed, and lie listening to somebody being dragged upstairs, +evidently against their will. By a thoughtful arrangement the +spare rooms at “Beggarbush” are exactly underneath the nurseries. +The same somebody, you conclude, still offering the most creditable +opposition, is being put back into bed. You can follow the contest +with much exactitude, because every time the body is flung down upon +the spring mattress, the bedstead, just above your head, makes a sort +of jump; while every time the body succeeds in struggling out again, +you are aware by the thud upon the floor. After a time the struggle +wanes, or maybe the bed collapses; and you drift back into sleep. +But the next moment, or what seems to be the next moment, you again +open your eyes under the consciousness of a presence. The door +is being held ajar, and four solemn faces, piled one on top of the other, +are peering at you, as though you were some natural curiosity kept in +this particular room. Seeing you awake, the top face, walking +calmly over the other three, comes in and sits on the bed in a friendly +attitude.</p> + +<p>“Oh!” it says, “we didn’t know you were awake. +I’ve been awake some time.”</p> + +<p>“So I gather,” you reply, shortly.</p> + +<p>“Pa doesn’t like us to get up too early,” it continues. +“He says everybody else in the house is liable to be disturbed +if we get up. So, of course, we mustn’t.”</p> + +<p>The tone is that of gentle resignation. It is instinct with +the spirit of virtuous pride, arising from the consciousness of self-sacrifice.</p> + +<p>“Don’t you call this being up?” you suggest.</p> + +<p>“Oh, no; we’re not really up, you know, because we’re +not properly dressed.” The fact is self-evident. “Pa’s +always very tired in the morning,” the voice continues; “of +course, that’s because he works hard all day. Are you ever +tired in the morning?”</p> + +<p>At this point he turns and notices, for the first time, that the +three other children have also entered, and are sitting in a semi-circle +on the floor. From their attitude it is clear they have mistaken +the whole thing for one of the slower forms of entertainment, some comic +lecture or conjuring exhibition, and are waiting patiently for you to +get out of bed and do something. It shocks him, the idea of their +being in the guest’s bedchamber. He peremptorily orders +them out. They do not answer him, they do not argue; in dead silence, +and with one accord they fall upon him. All you can see from the +bed is a confused tangle of waving arms and legs, suggestive of an intoxicated +octopus trying to find bottom. Not a word is spoken; that seems +to be the etiquette of the thing. If you are sleeping in your +pyjamas, you spring from the bed, and only add to the confusion; if +you are wearing a less showy garment, you stop where you are and shout +commands, which are utterly unheeded. The simplest plan is to +leave it to the eldest boy. He does get them out after a while, +and closes the door upon them. It re-opens immediately, and one, +generally Muriel, is shot back into the room. She enters as from +a catapult. She is handicapped by having long hair, which can +be used as a convenient handle. Evidently aware of this natural +disadvantage, she clutches it herself tightly in one hand, and punches +with the other. He opens the door again, and cleverly uses her +as a battering-ram against the wall of those without. You can +hear the dull crash as her head enters among them, and scatters them. +When the victory is complete, he comes back and resumes his seat on +the bed. There is no bitterness about him; he has forgotten the +whole incident.</p> + +<p>“I like the morning,” he says, “don’t you?”</p> + +<p>“Some mornings,” you agree, “are all right; others +are not so peaceful.”</p> + +<p>He takes no notice of your exception; a far-away look steals over +his somewhat ethereal face.</p> + +<p>“I should like to die in the morning,” he says; “everything +is so beautiful then.”</p> + +<p>“Well,” you answer, “perhaps you will, if your +father ever invites an irritable man to come and sleep here, and doesn’t +warn him beforehand.”</p> + +<p>He descends from his contemplative mood, and becomes himself again.</p> + +<p>“It’s jolly in the garden,” he suggests; “you +wouldn’t like to get up and have a game of cricket, would you?”</p> + +<p>It was not the idea with which you went to bed, but now, as things +have turned out, it seems as good a plan as lying there hopelessly awake; +and you agree.</p> + +<p>You learn, later in the day, that the explanation of the proceeding +is that you, unable to sleep, woke up early in the morning, and thought +you would like a game of cricket. The children, taught to be ever +courteous to guests, felt it their duty to humour you. Mrs. Harris +remarks at breakfast that at least you might have seen to it that the +children were properly dressed before you took them out; while Harris +points out to you, pathetically, how, by your one morning’s example +and encouragement, you have undone his labour of months.</p> + +<p>On this Wednesday morning, George, it seems, clamoured to get up +at a quarter-past five, and persuaded them to let him teach them cycling +tricks round the cucumber frames on Harris’s new wheel. +Even Mrs. Harris, however, did not blame George on this occasion; she +felt intuitively the idea could not have been entirely his.</p> + +<p>It is not that the Harris children have the faintest notion of avoiding +blame at the expense of a friend and comrade. One and all they +are honesty itself in accepting responsibility for their own misdeeds. +It simply is, that is how the thing presents itself to their understanding. +When you explain to them that you had no original intention of getting +up at five o’clock in the morning to play cricket on the croquet +lawn, or to mimic the history of the early Church by shooting with a +cross-bow at dolls tied to a tree; that as a matter of fact, left to +your own initiative, you would have slept peacefully till roused in +Christian fashion with a cup of tea at eight, they are firstly astonished, +secondly apologetic, and thirdly sincerely contrite. In the present +instance, waiving the purely academic question whether the awakening +of George at a little before five was due to natural instinct on his +part, or to the accidental passing of a home-made boomerang through +his bedroom window, the dear children frankly admitted that the blame +for his uprising was their own. As the eldest boy said:</p> + +<p>“We ought to have remembered that Uncle George had a long day +before him, and we ought to have dissuaded him from getting up. +I blame myself entirely.”</p> + +<p>But an occasional change of habit does nobody any harm; and besides, +as Harris and I agreed, it was good training for George. In the +Black Forest we should be up at five every morning; that we had determined +on. Indeed, George himself had suggested half-past four, but Harris +and I had argued that five would be early enough as an average; that +would enable us to be on our machines by six, and to break the back +of our journey before the heat of the day set in. Occasionally +we might start a little earlier, but not as a habit.</p> + +<p>I myself was up that morning at five. This was earlier than +I had intended. I had said to myself on going to sleep, “Six +o’clock, sharp!”</p> + +<p>There are men I know who can wake themselves at any time to the minute. +They say to themselves literally, as they lay their heads upon the pillow, +“Four-thirty,” “Four-forty-five,” or “Five-fifteen,” +as the case may be; and as the clock strikes they open their eyes. +It is very wonderful this; the more one dwells upon it, the greater +the mystery grows. Some Ego within us, acting quite independently +of our conscious self, must be capable of counting the hours while we +sleep. Unaided by clock or sun, or any other medium known to our +five senses, it keeps watch through the darkness. At the exact +moment it whispers “Time!” and we awake. The work +of an old riverside fellow I once talked with called him to be out of +bed each morning half an hour before high tide. He told me that +never once had he overslept himself by a minute. Latterly, he +never even troubled to work out the tide for himself. He would +lie down tired, and sleep a dreamless sleep, and each morning at a different +hour this ghostly watchman, true as the tide itself, would silently +call him. Did the man’s spirit haunt through the darkness +the muddy river stairs; or had it knowledge of the ways of Nature? +Whatever the process, the man himself was unconscious of it.</p> + +<p>In my own case my inward watchman is, perhaps, somewhat out of practice. +He does his best; but he is over-anxious; he worries himself, and loses +count. I say to him, maybe, “Five-thirty, please”; +and he wakes me with a start at half-past two. I look at my watch. +He suggests that, perhaps, I forgot to wind it up. I put it to +my ear; it is still going. He thinks, maybe, something has happened +to it; he is confident himself it is half-past five, if not a little +later. To satisfy him, I put on a pair of slippers and go downstairs +to inspect the dining-room clock. What happens to a man when he +wanders about the house in the middle of the night, clad in a dressing-gown +and a pair of slippers, there is no need to recount; most men know by +experience. Everything—especially everything with a sharp +corner—takes a cowardly delight in hitting him. When you +are wearing a pair of stout boots, things get out of your way; when +you venture among furniture in woolwork slippers and no socks, it comes +at you and kicks you. I return to bed bad tempered, and refusing +to listen to his further absurd suggestion that all the clocks in the +house have entered into a conspiracy against me, take half an hour to +get to sleep again. From four to five he wakes me every ten minutes. +I wish I had never said a word to him about the thing. At five +o’clock he goes to sleep himself, worn out, and leaves it to the +girl, who does it half an hour later than usual.</p> + +<p>On this particular Wednesday he worried me to such an extent, that +I got up at five simply to be rid of him. I did not know what +to do with myself. Our train did not leave till eight; all our +luggage had been packed and sent on the night before, together with +the bicycles, to Fenchurch Street Station. I went into my study; +I thought I would put in an hour’s writing. The early morning, +before one has breakfasted, is not, I take it, a good season for literary +effort. I wrote three paragraphs of a story, and then read them +over to myself. Some unkind things have been said about my work; +but nothing has yet been written which would have done justice to those +three paragraphs. I threw them into the waste-paper basket, and +sat trying to remember what, if any, charitable institutions provided +pensions for decayed authors.</p> + +<p>To escape from this train of reflection, I put a golf-ball in my +pocket, and selecting a driver, strolled out into the paddock. +A couple of sheep were browsing there, and they followed and took a +keen interest in my practice. The one was a kindly, sympathetic +old party. I do not think she understood the game; I think it +was my doing this innocent thing so early in the morning that appealed +to her. At every stroke I made she bleated:</p> + +<p>“Go-o-o-d, go-o-o-d ind-e-e-d!”</p> + +<p>She seemed as pleased as if she had done it herself.</p> + +<p>As for the other one, she was a cantankerous, disagreeable old thing, +as discouraging to me as her friend was helpful.</p> + +<p>“Ba-a-ad, da-a-a-m ba-a-a-d!” was her comment on almost +every stroke. As a matter of fact, some were really excellent +strokes; but she did it just to be contradictory, and for the sake of +irritating. I could see that.</p> + +<p>By a most regrettable accident, one of my swiftest balls struck the +good sheep on the nose. And at that the bad sheep laughed—laughed +distinctly and undoubtedly, a husky, vulgar laugh; and, while her friend +stood glued to the ground, too astonished to move, she changed her note +for the first time and bleated:</p> + +<p>“Go-o-o-d, ve-e-ry go-o-o-d! Be-e-e-est sho-o-o-ot he-e-e’s +ma-a-a-de!”</p> + +<p>I would have given half-a-crown if it had been she I had hit instead +of the other one. It is ever the good and amiable who suffer in +this world.</p> + +<p>I had wasted more time than I had intended in the paddock, and when +Ethelbertha came to tell me it was half-past seven, and the breakfast +was on the table, I remembered that I had not shaved. It vexes +Ethelbertha my shaving quickly. She fears that to outsiders it +may suggest a poor-spirited attempt at suicide, and that in consequence +it may get about the neighbourhood that we are not happy together. +As a further argument, she has also hinted that my appearance is not +of the kind that can be trifled with.</p> + +<p>On the whole, I was just as glad not to be able to take a long farewell +of Ethelbertha; I did not want to risk her breaking down. But +I should have liked more opportunity to say a few farewell words of +advice to the children, especially as regards my fishing rod, which +they will persist in using for cricket stumps; and I hate having to +run for a train. Quarter of a mile from the station I overtook +George and Harris; they were also running. In their case—so +Harris informed me, jerkily, while we trotted side by side—it +was the new kitchen stove that was to blame. This was the first +morning they had tried it, and from some cause or other it had blown +up the kidneys and scalded the cook. He said he hoped that by +the time we returned they would have got more used to it.</p> + +<p>We caught the train by the skin of our teeth, as the saying is, and +reflecting upon the events of the morning, as we sat gasping in the +carriage, there passed vividly before my mind the panorama of my Uncle +Podger, as on two hundred and fifty days in the year he would start +from Ealing Common by the nine-thirteen train to Moorgate Street.</p> + +<p>From my Uncle Podger’s house to the railway station was eight +minutes’ walk. What my uncle always said was:</p> + +<p>“Allow yourself a quarter of an hour, and take it easily.”</p> + +<p>What he always did was to start five minutes before the time and +run. I do not know why, but this was the custom of the suburb. +Many stout City gentlemen lived at Ealing in those days—I believe +some live there still—and caught early trains to Town. They +all started late; they all carried a black bag and a newspaper in one +hand, and an umbrella in the other; and for the last quarter of a mile +to the station, wet or fine, they all ran.</p> + +<p>Folks with nothing else to do, nursemaids chiefly and errand boys, +with now and then a perambulating costermonger added, would gather on +the common of a fine morning to watch them pass, and cheer the most +deserving. It was not a showy spectacle. They did not run +well, they did not even run fast; but they were earnest, and they did +their best. The exhibition appealed less to one’s sense +of art than to one’s natural admiration for conscientious effort.</p> + +<p>Occasionally a little harmless betting would take place among the +crowd.</p> + +<p>“Two to one agin the old gent in the white weskit!”</p> + +<p>“Ten to one on old Blowpipes, bar he don’t roll over +hisself ’fore ’e gets there!”</p> + +<p>“Heven money on the Purple Hemperor!”—a nickname +bestowed by a youth of entomological tastes upon a certain retired military +neighbour of my uncle’s,—a gentleman of imposing appearance +when stationary, but apt to colour highly under exercise.</p> + +<p>My uncle and the others would write to the <i>Ealing Press</i> complaining +bitterly concerning the supineness of the local police; and the editor +would add spirited leaders upon the Decay of Courtesy among the Lower +Orders, especially throughout the Western Suburbs. But no good +ever resulted.</p> + +<p>It was not that my uncle did not rise early enough; it was that troubles +came to him at the last moment. The first thing he would do after +breakfast would be to lose his newspaper. We always knew when +Uncle Podger had lost anything, by the expression of astonished indignation +with which, on such occasions, he would regard the world in general. +It never occurred to my Uncle Podger to say to himself:</p> + +<p>“I am a careless old man. I lose everything: I never +know where I have put anything. I am quite incapable of finding +it again for myself. In this respect I must be a perfect nuisance +to everybody about me. I must set to work and reform myself.”</p> + +<p>On the contrary, by some peculiar course of reasoning, he had convinced +himself that whenever he lost a thing it was everybody else’s +fault in the house but his own.</p> + +<p>“I had it in my hand here not a minute ago!” he would +exclaim.</p> + +<p>From his tone you would have thought he was living surrounded by +conjurers, who spirited away things from him merely to irritate him.</p> + +<p>“Could you have left it in the garden?” my aunt would +suggest.</p> + +<p>“What should I want to leave it in the garden for? I +don’t want a paper in the garden; I want the paper in the train +with me.”</p> + +<p>“You haven’t put it in your pocket?”</p> + +<p>“God bless the woman! Do you think I should be standing +here at five minutes to nine looking for it if I had it in my pocket +all the while? Do you think I’m a fool?”</p> + +<p>Here somebody would explain, “What’s this?” and +hand him from somewhere a paper neatly folded.</p> + +<p>“I do wish people would leave my things alone,” he would +growl, snatching at it savagely.</p> + +<p>He would open his bag to put it in, and then glancing at it, he would +pause, speechless with sense of injury.</p> + +<p>“What’s the matter?” aunt would ask.</p> + +<p>“The day before yesterday’s!” he would answer, +too hurt even to shout, throwing the paper down upon the table.</p> + +<p>If only sometimes it had been yesterday’s it would have been +a change. But it was always the day before yesterday’s; +except on Tuesday; then it would be Saturday’s.</p> + +<p>We would find it for him eventually; as often as not he was sitting +on it. And then he would smile, not genially, but with the weariness +that comes to a man who feels that fate has cast his lot among a band +of hopeless idiots.</p> + +<p>“All the time, right in front of your noses—!” +He would not finish the sentence; he prided himself on his self-control.</p> + +<p>This settled, he would start for the hall, where it was the custom +of my Aunt Maria to have the children gathered, ready to say good-bye +to him.</p> + +<p>My aunt never left the house herself, if only to make a call next +door, without taking a tender farewell of every inmate. One never +knew, she would say, what might happen.</p> + +<p>One of them, of course, was sure to be missing, and the moment this +was noticed all the other six, without an instant’s hesitation, +would scatter with a whoop to find it. Immediately they were gone +it would turn up by itself from somewhere quite near, always with the +most reasonable explanation for its absence; and would at once start +off after the others to explain to them that it was found. In +this way, five minutes at least would be taken up in everybody’s +looking for everybody else, which was just sufficient time to allow +my uncle to find his umbrella and lose his hat. Then, at last, +the group reassembled in the hall, the drawing-room clock would commence +to strike nine. It possessed a cold, penetrating chime that always +had the effect of confusing my uncle. In his excitement he would +kiss some of the children twice over, pass by others, forget whom he +had kissed and whom he hadn’t, and have to begin all over again. +He used to say he believed they mixed themselves up on purpose, and +I am not prepared to maintain that the charge was altogether false. +To add to his troubles, one child always had a sticky face; and that +child would always be the most affectionate.</p> + +<p>If things were going too smoothly, the eldest boy would come out +with some tale about all the clocks in the house being five minutes +slow, and of his having been late for school the previous day in consequence. +This would send my uncle rushing impetuously down to the gate, where +he would recollect that he had with him neither his bag nor his umbrella. +All the children that my aunt could not stop would charge after him, +two of them struggling for the umbrella, the others surging round the +bag. And when they returned we would discover on the hall table +the most important thing of all that he had forgotten, and wondered +what he would say about it when he came home.</p> + +<p>We arrived at Waterloo a little after nine, and at once proceeded +to put George’s experiment into operation. Opening the book +at the chapter entitled “At the Cab Rank,” we walked up +to a hansom, raised our hats, and wished the driver “Good-morning.”</p> + +<p>This man was not to be outdone in politeness by any foreigner, real +or imitation. Calling to a friend named “Charles” +to “hold the steed,” he sprang from his box, and returned +to us a bow, that would have done credit to Mr. Turveydrop himself. +Speaking apparently in the name of the nation, he welcomed us to England, +adding a regret that Her Majesty was not at the moment in London.</p> + +<p>We could not reply to him in kind. Nothing of this sort had +been anticipated by the book. We called him “coachman,” +at which he again bowed to the pavement, and asked him if he would have +the goodness to drive us to the Westminster Bridge road.</p> + +<p>He laid his hand upon his heart, and said the pleasure would be his.</p> + +<p>Taking the third sentence in the chapter, George asked him what his +fare would be.</p> + +<p>The question, as introducing a sordid element into the conversation, +seemed to hurt his feelings. He said he never took money from +distinguished strangers; he suggested a souvenir—a diamond scarf +pin, a gold snuffbox, some little trifle of that sort by which he could +remember us.</p> + +<p>As a small crowd had collected, and as the joke was drifting rather +too far in the cabman’s direction, we climbed in without further +parley, and were driven away amid cheers. We stopped the cab at +a boot shop a little past Astley’s Theatre that looked the sort +of place we wanted. It was one of those overfed shops that the +moment their shutters are taken down in the morning disgorge their goods +all round them. Boxes of boots stood piled on the pavement or +in the gutter opposite. Boots hung in festoons about its doors +and windows. Its sun-blind was as some grimy vine, bearing bunches +of black and brown boots. Inside, the shop was a bower of boots. +The man, when we entered, was busy with a chisel and hammer opening +a new crate full of boots.</p> + +<p>George raised his hat, and said “Good-morning.”</p> + +<p>The man did not even turn round. He struck me from the first +as a disagreeable man. He grunted something which might have been +“Good-morning,” or might not, and went on with his work.</p> + +<p>George said: “I have been recommended to your shop by my friend, +Mr. X.”</p> + +<p>In response, the man should have said: “Mr. X. is a most worthy +gentleman; it will give me the greatest pleasure to serve any friend +of his.”</p> + +<p>What he did say was: “Don’t know him; never heard of +him.”</p> + +<p>This was disconcerting. The book gave three or four methods +of buying boots; George had carefully selected the one centred round +“Mr. X,” as being of all the most courtly. You talked +a good deal with the shopkeeper about this “Mr. X,” and +then, when by this means friendship and understanding had been established, +you slid naturally and gracefully into the immediate object of your +coming, namely, your desire for boots, “cheap and good.” +This gross, material man cared, apparently, nothing for the niceties +of retail dealing. It was necessary with such an one to come to +business with brutal directness. George abandoned “Mr. X,” +and turning back to a previous page, took a sentence at random. +It was not a happy selection; it was a speech that would have been superfluous +made to any bootmaker. Under the present circumstances, threatened +and stifled as we were on every side by boots, it possessed the dignity +of positive imbecility. It ran:—“One has told me +that you have here boots for sale.”</p> + +<p>For the first time the man put down his hammer and chisel, and looked +at us. He spoke slowly, in a thick and husky voice. He said:</p> + +<p>“What d’ye think I keep boots for—to smell ’em?”</p> + +<p>He was one of those men that begin quietly and grow more angry as +they proceed, their wrongs apparently working within them like yeast.</p> + +<p>“What d’ye think I am,” he continued, “a +boot collector? What d’ye think I’m running this shop +for—my health? D’ye think I love the boots, and can’t +bear to part with a pair? D’ye think I hang ’em about +here to look at ’em? Ain’t there enough of ’em? +Where d’ye think you are—in an international exhibition +of boots? What d’ye think these boots are—a historical +collection? Did you ever hear of a man keeping a boot shop and +not selling boots? D’ye think I decorate the shop with ’em +to make it look pretty? What d’ye take me for—a prize +idiot?”</p> + +<p>I have always maintained that these conversation books are never +of any real use. What we wanted was some English equivalent for +the well-known German idiom: “Behalten Sie Ihr Haar auf.”</p> + +<p>Nothing of the sort was to be found in the book from beginning to +end. However, I will do George the credit to admit he chose the +very best sentence that was to be found therein and applied it. +He said:</p> + +<p>“I will come again, when, perhaps, you will have some more +boots to show me. Till then, adieu!”</p> + +<p>With that we returned to our cab and drove away, leaving the man +standing in the centre of his boot-bedecked doorway addressing remarks +to us. What he said, I did not hear, but the passers-by appeared +to find it interesting.</p> + +<p>George was for stopping at another boot shop and trying the experiment +afresh; he said he really did want a pair of bedroom slippers. +But we persuaded him to postpone their purchase until our arrival in +some foreign city, where the tradespeople are no doubt more inured to +this sort of talk, or else more naturally amiable. On the subject +of the hat, however, he was adamant. He maintained that without +that he could not travel, and, accordingly, we pulled up at a small +shop in the Blackfriars Road.</p> + +<p>The proprietor of this shop was a cheery, bright-eyed little man, +and he helped us rather than hindered us.</p> + +<p>When George asked him in the words of the book, “Have you any +hats?” he did not get angry; he just stopped and thoughtfully +scratched his chin.</p> + +<p>“Hats,” said he. “Let me think. Yes”—here +a smile of positive pleasure broke over his genial countenance—“yes, +now I come to think of it, I believe I have a hat. But, tell me, +why do you ask me?”</p> + +<p>George explained to him that he wished to purchase a cap, a travelling +cap, but the essence of the transaction was that it was to be a “good +cap.”</p> + +<p>The man’s face fell.</p> + +<p>“Ah,” he remarked, “there, I am afraid, you have +me. Now, if you had wanted a bad cap, not worth the price asked +for it; a cap good for nothing but to clean windows with, I could have +found you the very thing. But a good cap—no; we don’t +keep them. But wait a minute,” he continued,—on seeing +the disappointment that spread over George’s expressive countenance, +“don’t be in a hurry. I have a cap here”—he +went to a drawer and opened it—“it is not a good cap, but +it is not so bad as most of the caps I sell.”</p> + +<p>He brought it forward, extended on his palm.</p> + +<p>“What do you think of that?” he asked. “Could +you put up with that?”</p> + +<p>George fitted it on before the glass, and, choosing another remark +from the book, said:</p> + +<p>“This hat fits me sufficiently well, but, tell me, do you consider +that it becomes me?”</p> + +<p>The man stepped back and took a bird’s-eye view.</p> + +<p>“Candidly,” he replied, “I can’t say that +it does.”</p> + +<p>He turned from George, and addressed himself to Harris and myself.</p> + +<p>“Your friend’s beauty,” said he, “I should +describe as elusive. It is there, but you can easily miss it. +Now, in that cap, to my mind, you do miss it.”</p> + +<p>At that point it occurred to George that he had had sufficient fun +with this particular man. He said:</p> + +<p>“That is all right. We don’t want to lose the train. +How much?”</p> + +<p>Answered the man: “The price of that cap, sir, which, in my +opinion, is twice as much as it is worth, is four-and-six. Would +you like it wrapped up in brown paper, sir, or in white?”</p> + +<p>George said he would take it as it was, paid the man four-and-six +in silver, and went out. Harris and I followed.</p> + +<p>At Fenchurch Street we compromised with our cabman for five shillings. +He made us another courtly bow, and begged us to remember him to the +Emperor of Austria.</p> + +<p>Comparing views in the train, we agreed that we had lost the game +by two points to one; and George, who was evidently disappointed, threw +the book out of window.</p> + +<p>We found our luggage and the bicycles safe on the boat, and with +the tide at twelve dropped down the river.</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>CHAPTER V</h2> + +<p class="letter"> +A necessary digression—Introduced by story containing moral—One +of the charms of this book—The Journal that did not command success—Its +boast: “Instruction combined with Amusement”—Problem: +say what should be considered instructive and what amusing—A popular +game—Expert opinion on English law—Another of the charms +of this book—A hackneyed tune—Yet a third charm of this +book—The sort of wood it was where the maiden lived—Description +of the Black Forest.</p> + +<p>A story is told of a Scotchman who, loving a lassie, desired her +for his wife. But he possessed the prudence of his race. +He had noticed in his circle many an otherwise promising union result +in disappointment and dismay, purely in consequence of the false estimate +formed by bride or bridegroom concerning the imagined perfectability +of the other. He determined that in his own case no collapsed +ideal should be possible. Therefore, it was that his proposal +took the following form:</p> + +<p>“I’m but a puir lad, Jennie; I hae nae siller to offer +ye, and nae land.”</p> + +<p>“Ah, but ye hae yoursel’, Davie!”</p> + +<p>“An’ I’m wishfu’ it wa’ onything else, +lassie. I’m nae but a puir ill-seasoned loon, Jennie.”</p> + +<p>“Na, na; there’s mony a lad mair ill-looking than yoursel’, +Davie.”</p> + +<p>“I hae na seen him, lass, and I’m just a-thinkin’ +I shouldna’ care to.”</p> + +<p>“Better a plain man, Davie, that ye can depend a’ than +ane that would be a speirin’ at the lassies, a-bringin’ +trouble into the hame wi’ his flouting ways.”</p> + +<p>“Dinna ye reckon on that, Jennie; it’s nae the bonniest +Bubbly Jock that mak’s the most feathers to fly in the kailyard. +I was ever a lad to run after the petticoats, as is weel kent; an’ +it’s a weary handfu’ I’ll be to ye, I’m thinkin’.”</p> + +<p>“Ah, but ye hae a kind heart, Davie! an’ ye love me weel. +I’m sure on’t.”</p> + +<p>“I like ye weel enoo’, Jennie, though I canna say how +long the feeling may bide wi’ me; an’ I’m kind enoo’ +when I hae my ain way, an’ naethin’ happens to put me oot. +But I hae the deevil’s ain temper, as my mither call tell ye, +an’ like my puir fayther, I’m a-thinkin’, I’ll +grow nae better as I grow mair auld.”</p> + +<p>“Ay, but ye’re sair hard upon yersel’, Davie. +Ye’re an honest lad. I ken ye better than ye ken yersel’, +an’ ye’ll mak a guid hame for me.”</p> + +<p>“Maybe, Jennie! But I hae my doots. It’s +a sair thing for wife an’ bairns when the guid man canna keep +awa’ frae the glass; an’ when the scent of the whusky comes +to me it’s just as though I hae’d the throat o’ a +Loch Tay salmon; it just gaes doon an’ doon, an’ there’s +nae filling o’ me.”</p> + +<p>“Ay, but ye’re a guid man when ye’re sober, Davie.”</p> + +<p>“Maybe I’ll be that, Jennie, if I’m nae disturbed.”</p> + +<p>“An’ ye’ll bide wi’ me, Davie, an’ +work for me?”</p> + +<p>“I see nae reason why I shouldna bide wi’ yet Jennie; +but dinna ye clack aboot work to me, for I just canna bear the thoct +o’t.”</p> + +<p>“Anyhow, ye’ll do your best, Davie? As the minister +says, nae man can do mair than that.”</p> + +<p>“An’ it’s a puir best that mine’ll be, Jennie, +and I’m nae sae sure ye’ll hae ower muckle even o’ +that. We’re a’ weak, sinfu’ creatures, Jennie, +an’ ye’d hae some deefficulty to find a man weaker or mair +sinfu’ than mysel’.”</p> + +<p>“Weel, weel, ye hae a truthfu’ tongue, Davie. Mony +a lad will mak fine promises to a puir lassie, only to break ’em +an’ her heart wi’ ’em. Ye speak me fair, Davie, +and I’m thinkin’ I’ll just tak ye, an’ see what +comes o’t.”</p> + +<p>Concerning what did come of it, the story is silent, but one feels +that under no circumstances had the lady any right to complain of her +bargain. Whether she ever did or did not—for women do not +invariably order their tongues according to logic, nor men either for +the matter of that—Davie, himself, must have had the satisfaction +of reflecting that all reproaches were undeserved.</p> + +<p>I wish to be equally frank with the reader of this book. I +wish here conscientiously to let forth its shortcomings. I wish +no one to read this book under a misapprehension.</p> + +<p>There will be no useful information in this book.</p> + +<p>Anyone who should think that with the aid of this book he would be +able to make a tour through Germany and the Black Forest would probably +lose himself before he got to the Nore. That, at all events, would +be the best thing that could happen to him. The farther away from +home he got, the greater only would be his difficulties.</p> + +<p>I do not regard the conveyance of useful information as my <i>forte</i>. +This belief was not inborn with me; it has been driven home upon me +by experience.</p> + +<p>In my early journalistic days, I served upon a paper, the forerunner +of many very popular periodicals of the present day. Our boast +was that we combined instruction with amusement; as to what should be +regarded as affording amusement and what instruction, the reader judged +for himself. We gave advice to people about to marry—long, +earnest advice that would, had they followed it, have made our circle +of readers the envy of the whole married world. We told our subscribers +how to make fortunes by keeping rabbits, giving facts and figures. +The thing that must have surprised them was that we ourselves did not +give up journalism and start rabbit-farming. Often and often have +I proved conclusively from authoritative sources how a man starting +a rabbit farm with twelve selected rabbits and a little judgment must, +at the end of three years, be in receipt of an income of two thousand +a year, rising rapidly; he simply could not help himself. He might +not want the money. He might not know what to do with it when +he had it. But there it was for him. I have never met a +rabbit farmer myself worth two thousand a year, though I have known +many start with the twelve necessary, assorted rabbits. Something +has always gone wrong somewhere; maybe the continued atmosphere of a +rabbit farm saps the judgment.</p> + +<p>We told our readers how many bald-headed men there were in Iceland, +and for all we knew our figures may have been correct; how many red +herrings placed tail to mouth it would take to reach from London to +Rome, which must have been useful to anyone desirous of laying down +a line of red herrings from London to Rome, enabling him to order in +the right quantity at the beginning; how many words the average woman +spoke in a day; and other such like items of information calculated +to make them wise and great beyond the readers of other journals.</p> + +<p>We told them how to cure fits in cats. Personally I do not +believe, and I did not believe then, that you can cure fits in cats. +If I had a cat subject to fits I should advertise it for sale, or even +give it away. But our duty was to supply information when asked +for. Some fool wrote, clamouring to know; and I spent the best +part of a morning seeking knowledge on the subject. I found what +I wanted at length at the end of an old cookery book. What it +was doing there I have never been able to understand. It had nothing +to do with the proper subject of the book whatever; there was no suggestion +that you could make anything savoury out of a cat, even when you had +cured it of its fits. The authoress had just thrown in this paragraph +out of pure generosity. I can only say that I wish she had left +it out; it was the cause of a deal of angry correspondence and of the +loss of four subscribers to the paper, if not more. The man said +the result of following our advice had been two pounds worth of damage +to his kitchen crockery, to say nothing of a broken window and probable +blood poisoning to himself; added to which the cat’s fits were +worse than before. And yet it was a simple enough recipe. +You held the cat between your legs, gently, so as not to hurt it, and +with a pair of scissors made a sharp, clean cut in its tail. You +did not cut off any part of the tail; you were to be careful not to +do that; you only made an incision.</p> + +<p>As we explained to the man, the garden or the coal cellar would have +been the proper place for the operation; no one but an idiot would have +attempted to perform it in a kitchen, and without help.</p> + +<p>We gave them hints on etiquette. We told them how to address +peers and bishops; also how to eat soup. We instructed shy young +men how to acquire easy grace in drawing-rooms. We taught dancing +to both sexes by the aid of diagrams. We solved their religious +doubts for them, and supplied them with a code of morals that would +have done credit to a stained-glass window.</p> + +<p>The paper was not a financial success, it was some years before its +time, and the consequence was that our staff was limited. My own +department, I remember, included “Advice to Mothers”—I +wrote that with the assistance of my landlady, who, having divorced +one husband and buried four children, was, I considered, a reliable +authority on all domestic matters; “Hints on Furnishing and Household +Decorations—with Designs”; a column of “Literary Counsel +to Beginners”—I sincerely hope my guidance was of better +service to them than it has ever proved to myself; and our weekly article, +“Straight Talks to Young Men,” signed “Uncle Henry.” +A kindly, genial old fellow was “Uncle Henry,” with wide +and varied experience, and a sympathetic attitude towards the rising +generation. He had been through trouble himself in his far back +youth, and knew most things. Even to this day I read of “Uncle +Henry’s” advice, and, though I say it who should not, it +still seems to me good, sound advice. I often think that had I +followed “Uncle Henry’s” counsel closer I would have +been wiser, made fewer mistakes, felt better satisfied with myself than +is now the case.</p> + +<p>A quiet, weary little woman, who lived in a bed-sitting room off +the Tottenham Court Road, and who had a husband in a lunatic asylum, +did our “Cooking Column,” “Hints on Education”—we +were full of hints,—and a page and a half of “Fashionable +Intelligence,” written in the pertly personal style which even +yet has not altogether disappeared, so I am informed, from modern journalism: +“I must tell you about the <i>divine</i> frock I wore at ‘Glorious +Goodwood’ last week. Prince C.—but there, I really +must not repeat all the things the silly fellow says; he is <i>too</i> +foolish—and the <i>dear</i> Countess, I fancy, was just the <i>weeish</i> +bit jealous”—and so on.</p> + +<p>Poor little woman! I see her now in the shabby grey alpaca, +with the inkstains on it. Perhaps a day at “Glorious Goodwood,” +or anywhere else in the fresh air, might have put some colour into her +cheeks.</p> + +<p>Our proprietor—one of the most unashamedly ignorant men I ever +met—I remember his gravely informing a correspondent once that +Ben Jonson had written <i>Rabelais</i> to pay for his mother’s +funeral, and only laughing good-naturedly when his mistakes were pointed +out to him—wrote with the aid of a cheap encyclopedia the pages +devoted to “General Information,” and did them on the whole +remarkably well; while our office boy, with an excellent pair of scissors +for his assistant, was responsible for our supply of “Wit and +Humour.”</p> + +<p>It was hard work, and the pay was poor; what sustained us was the +consciousness that we were instructing and improving our fellow men +and women. Of all games in the world, the one most universally +and eternally popular is the game of school. You collect six children, +and put them on a doorstep, while you walk up and down with the book +and cane. We play it when babies, we play it when boys and girls, +we play it when men and women, we play it as, lean and slippered, we +totter towards the grave. It never palls upon, it never wearies +us. Only one thing mars it: the tendency of one and all of the +other six children to clamour for their turn with the book and the cane. +The reason, I am sure, that journalism is so popular a calling, in spite +of its many drawbacks, is this: each journalist feels he is the boy +walking up and down with the cane. The Government, the Classes, +and the Masses, Society, Art, and Literature, are the other children +sitting on the doorstep. He instructs and improves them.</p> + +<p>But I digress. It was to excuse my present permanent disinclination +to be the vehicle of useful information that I recalled these matters. +Let us now return.</p> + +<p>Somebody, signing himself “Balloonist,” had written to +ask concerning the manufacture of hydrogen gas. It is an easy +thing to manufacture—at least, so I gathered after reading up +the subject at the British Museum; yet I did warn “Balloonist,” +whoever he might be, to take all necessary precaution against accident. +What more could I have done? Ten days afterwards a florid-faced +lady called at the office, leading by the hand what, she explained, +was her son, aged twelve. The boy’s face was unimpressive +to a degree positively remarkable. His mother pushed him forward +and took off his hat, and then I perceived the reason for this. +He had no eyebrows whatever, and of his hair nothing remained but a +scrubby dust, giving to his head the appearance of a hard-boiled egg, +skinned and sprinkled with black pepper.</p> + +<p>“That was a handsome lad this time last week, with naturally +curly hair,” remarked the lady. She spoke with a rising +inflection, suggestive of the beginning of things.</p> + +<p>“What has happened to him?” asked our chief.</p> + +<p>“This is what’s happened to him,” retorted the +lady. She drew from her muff a copy of our last week’s issue, +with my article on hydrogen gas scored in pencil, and flung it before +his eyes. Our chief took it and read it through.</p> + +<p>“He was ‘Balloonist’?” queried the chief.</p> + +<p>“He was ‘Balloonist,’” admitted the lady, +“the poor innocent child, and now look at him!”</p> + +<p>“Maybe it’ll grow again,” suggested our chief.</p> + +<p>“Maybe it will,” retorted the lady, her key continuing +to rise, “and maybe it won’t. What I want to know +is what you are going to do for him.”</p> + +<p>Our chief suggested a hair wash. I thought at first she was +going to fly at him; but for the moment she confined herself to words. +It appears she was not thinking of a hair wash, but of compensation. +She also made observations on the general character of our paper, its +utility, its claim to public support, the sense and wisdom of its contributors.</p> + +<p>“I really don’t see that it is our fault,” urged +the chief—he was a mild-mannered man; “he asked for information, +and he got it.”</p> + +<p>“Don’t you try to be funny about it,” said the +lady (he had not meant to be funny, I am sure; levity was not his failing) +“or you’ll get something that <i>you</i> haven’t asked +for. Why, for two pins,” said the lady, with a suddenness +that sent us both flying like scuttled chickens behind our respective +chairs, “I’d come round and make your head like it!” +I take it, she meant like the boy’s. She also added observations +upon our chief’s personal appearance, that were distinctly in +bad taste. She was not a nice woman by any means.</p> + +<p>Myself, I am of opinion that had she brought the action she threatened, +she would have had no case; but our chief was a man who had had experience +of the law, and his principle was always to avoid it. I have heard +him say:</p> + +<p>“If a man stopped me in the street and demanded of me my watch, +I should refuse to give it to him. If he threatened to take it +by force, I feel I should, though not a fighting man, do my best to +protect it. If, on the other hand, he should assert his intention +of trying to obtain it by means of an action in any court of law, I +should take it out of my pocket and hand it to him, and think I had +got off cheaply.”</p> + +<p>He squared the matter with the florid-faced lady for a five-pound +note, which must have represented a month’s profits on the paper; +and she departed, taking her damaged offspring with her. After +she was gone, our chief spoke kindly to me. He said:</p> + +<p>“Don’t think I am blaming you in the least; it is not +your fault, it is Fate. Keep to moral advice and criticism—there +you are distinctly good; but don’t try your hand any more on ‘Useful +Information.’ As I have said, it is not your fault. +Your information is correct enough—there is nothing to be said +against that; it simply is that you are not lucky with it.”</p> + +<p>I would that I had followed his advice always; I would have saved +myself and other people much disaster. I see no reason why it +should be, but so it is. If I instruct a man as to the best route +between London and Rome, he loses his luggage in Switzerland, or is +nearly shipwrecked off Dover. If I counsel him in the purchase +of a camera, he gets run in by the German police for photographing fortresses. +I once took a deal of trouble to explain to a man how to marry his deceased +wife’s sister at Stockholm. I found out for him the time +the boat left Hull and the best hotels to stop at. There was not +a single mistake from beginning to end in the information with which +I supplied him; no hitch occurred anywhere; yet now he never speaks +to me.</p> + +<p>Therefore it is that I have come to restrain my passion for the giving +of information; therefore it is that nothing in the nature of practical +instruction will be found, if I can help it, within these pages.</p> + +<p>There will be no description of towns, no historical reminiscences, +no architecture, no morals.</p> + +<p>I once asked an intelligent foreigner what he thought of London.</p> + +<p>He said: “It is a very big town.”</p> + +<p>I said: “What struck you most about it?”</p> + +<p>He replied: “The people.”</p> + +<p>I said: “Compared with other towns—Paris, Rome, Berlin,—what +did you think of it?”</p> + +<p>He shrugged his shoulders. “It is bigger,” he said; +“what more can one say?”</p> + +<p>One anthill is very much like another. So many avenues, wide +or narrow, where the little creatures swarm in strange confusion; these +bustling by, important; these halting to pow-wow with one another. +These struggling with big burdens; those but basking in the sun. +So many granaries stored with food; so many cells where the little things +sleep, and eat, and love; the corner where lie their little white bones. +This hive is larger, the next smaller. This nest lies on the sand, +and another under the stones. This was built but yesterday, while +that was fashioned ages ago, some say even before the swallows came; +who knows?</p> + +<p>Nor will there be found herein folk-lore or story.</p> + +<p>Every valley where lie homesteads has its song. I will tell +you the plot; you can turn it into verse and set it to music of your +own.</p> + +<p>There lived a lass, and there came a lad, who loved and rode away.</p> + +<p>It is a monotonous song, written in many languages; for the young +man seems to have been a mighty traveller. Here in sentimental +Germany they remember him well. So also the dwellers of the Blue +Alsatian Mountains remember his coming among them; while, if my memory +serves me truly, he likewise visited the Banks of Allan Water. +A veritable Wandering Jew is he; for still the foolish girls listen, +so they say, to the dying away of his hoof-beats.</p> + +<p>In this land of many ruins, that long while ago were voice-filled +homes, linger many legends; and here again, giving you the essentials, +I leave you to cook the dish for yourself. Take a human heart +or two, assorted; a bundle of human passions—there are not many +of them, half a dozen at the most; season with a mixture of good and +evil; flavour the whole with the sauce of death, and serve up where +and when you will. “The Saint’s Cell,” “The +Haunted Keep,” “The Dungeon Grave,” “The Lover’s +Leap”—call it what you will, the stew’s the same.</p> + +<p>Lastly, in this book there will be no scenery. This is not +laziness on my part; it is self-control. Nothing is easier to +write than scenery; nothing more difficult and unnecessary to read. +When Gibbon had to trust to travellers’ tales for a description +of the Hellespont, and the Rhine was chiefly familiar to English students +through the medium of <i>Caesar’s Commentaries</i>, it behoved +every globe-trotter, for whatever distance, to describe to the best +of his ability the things that he had seen. Dr. Johnson, familiar +with little else than the view down Fleet Street, could read the description +of a Yorkshire moor with pleasure and with profit. To a cockney +who had never seen higher ground than the Hog’s Back in Surrey, +an account of Snowdon must have appeared exciting. But we, or +rather the steam-engine and the camera for us, have changed all that. +The man who plays tennis every year at the foot of the Matterhorn, and +billiards on the summit of the Rigi, does not thank you for an elaborate +and painstaking description of the Grampian Hills. To the average +man, who has seen a dozen oil paintings, a hundred photographs, a thousand +pictures in the illustrated journals, and a couple of panoramas of Niagara, +the word-painting of a waterfall is tedious.</p> + +<p>An American friend of mine, a cultured gentleman, who loved poetry +well enough for its own sake, told me that he had obtained a more correct +and more satisfying idea of the Lake district from an eighteenpenny +book of photographic views than from all the works of Coleridge, Southey, +and Wordsworth put together. I also remember his saying concerning +this subject of scenery in literature, that he would thank an author +as much for writing an eloquent description of what he had just had +for dinner. But this was in reference to another argument; namely, +the proper province of each art. My friend maintained that just +as canvas and colour were the wrong mediums for story telling, so word-painting +was, at its best, but a clumsy method of conveying impressions that +could much better be received through the eye.</p> + +<p>As regards the question, there also lingers in my memory very distinctly +a hot school afternoon. The class was for English literature, +and the proceedings commenced with the reading of a certain lengthy, +but otherwise unobjectionable, poem. The author’s name, +I am ashamed to say, I have forgotten, together with the title of the +poem. The reading finished, we closed our books, and the Professor, +a kindly, white-haired old gentleman, suggested our giving in our own +words an account of what we had just read.</p> + +<p>“Tell me,” said the Professor, encouragingly, “what +it is all about.”</p> + +<p>“Please, sir,” said the first boy—he spoke with +bowed head and evident reluctance, as though the subject were one which, +left to himself, he would never have mentioned,—“it is about +a maiden.”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” agreed the Professor; “but I want you to +tell me in your own words. We do not speak of a maiden, you know; +we say a girl. Yes, it is about a girl. Go on.”</p> + +<p>“A girl,” repeated the top boy, the substitution apparently +increasing his embarrassment, “who lived in a wood.”</p> + +<p>“What sort of a wood?” asked the Professor.</p> + +<p>The first boy examined his inkpot carefully, and then looked at the +ceiling.</p> + +<p>“Come,” urged the Professor, growing impatient, “you +have been reading about this wood for the last ten minutes. Surely +you can tell me something concerning it.”</p> + +<p>“The gnarly trees, their twisted branches”—recommenced +the top boy.</p> + +<p>“No, no,” interrupted the Professor; “I do not +want you to repeat the poem. I want you to tell me in your own +words what sort of a wood it was where the girl lived.”</p> + +<p>The Professor tapped his foot impatiently; the top boy made a dash +for it.</p> + +<p>“Please, sir, it was the usual sort of a wood.”</p> + +<p>“Tell him what sort of a wood,” said he, pointing to +the second lad.</p> + +<p>The second boy said it was a “green wood.” This +annoyed the Professor still more; he called the second boy a blockhead, +though really I cannot see why, and passed on to the third, who, for +the last minute, had been sitting apparently on hot plates, with his +right arm waving up and down like a distracted semaphore signal. +He would have had to say it the next second, whether the Professor had +asked him or not; he was red in the face, holding his knowledge in.</p> + +<p>“A dark and gloomy wood,” shouted the third boy, with +much relief to his feelings.</p> + +<p>“A dark and gloomy wood,” repeated the Professor, with +evident approval. “And why was it dark and gloomy?”</p> + +<p>The third boy was still equal to the occasion.</p> + +<p>“Because the sun could not get inside it.”</p> + +<p>The Professor felt he had discovered the poet of the class.</p> + +<p>“Because the sun could not get into it, or, better, because +the sunbeams could not penetrate. And why could not the sunbeams +penetrate there?”</p> + +<p>“Please, sir, because the leaves were too thick.”</p> + +<p>“Very well,” said the Professor. “The girl +lived in a dark and gloomy wood, through the leafy canopy of which the +sunbeams were unable to pierce. Now, what grew in this wood?” +He pointed to the fourth boy.</p> + +<p>“Please, sir, trees, sir.”</p> + +<p>“And what else?”</p> + +<p>“Toadstools, sir.” This after a pause.</p> + +<p>The Professor was not quite sure about the toadstools, but on referring +to the text he found that the boy was right; toadstools had been mentioned.</p> + +<p>“Quite right,” admitted the Professor, “toadstools +grew there. And what else? What do you find underneath trees +in a wood?”</p> + +<p>“Please, sir, earth, sir.”</p> + +<p>“No; no; what grows in a wood besides trees?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, please, sir, bushes, sir.”</p> + +<p>“Bushes; very good. Now we are getting on. In this +wood there were trees and bushes. And what else?”</p> + +<p>He pointed to a small boy near the bottom, who having decided that +the wood was too far off to be of any annoyance to him, individually, +was occupying his leisure playing noughts and crosses against himself. +Vexed and bewildered, but feeling it necessary to add something to the +inventory, he hazarded blackberries. This was a mistake; the poet +had not mentioned blackberries.</p> + +<p>“Of course, Klobstock would think of something to eat,” +commented the Professor, who prided himself on his ready wit. +This raised a laugh against Klobstock, and pleased the Professor.</p> + +<p>“You,” continued he, pointing to a boy in the middle; +“what else was there in this wood besides trees and bushes?”</p> + +<p>“Please, sir, there was a torrent there.”</p> + +<p>“Quite right; and what did the torrent do?”</p> + +<p>“Please, sir, it gurgled.”</p> + +<p>“No; no. Streams gurgle, torrents—?”</p> + +<p>“Roar, sir.”</p> + +<p>“It roared. And what made it roar?”</p> + +<p>This was a poser. One boy—he was not our prize intellect, +I admit—suggested the girl. To help us the Professor put +his question in another form:</p> + +<p>“When did it roar?”</p> + +<p>Our third boy, again coming to the rescue, explained that it roared +when it fell down among the rocks. I think some of us had a vague +idea that it must have been a cowardly torrent to make such a noise +about a little thing like this; a pluckier torrent, we felt, would have +got up and gone on, saying nothing about it. A torrent that roared +every time it fell upon a rock we deemed a poor spirited torrent; but +the Professor seemed quite content with it.</p> + +<p>“And what lived in this wood beside the girl?” was the +next question.</p> + +<p>“Please, sir, birds, sir.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, birds lived in this wood. What else?”</p> + +<p>Birds seemed to have exhausted our ideas.</p> + +<p>“Come,” said the Professor, “what are those animals +with tails, that run up trees?”</p> + +<p>We thought for a while, then one of us suggested cats.</p> + +<p>This was an error; the poet had said nothing about cats; squirrels +was what the Professor was trying to get.</p> + +<p>I do not recall much more about this wood in detail. I only +recollect that the sky was introduced into it. In places where +there occurred an opening among the trees you could by looking up see +the sky above you; very often there were clouds in this sky, and occasionally, +if I remember rightly, the girl got wet.</p> + +<p>I have dwelt upon this incident, because it seems to me suggestive +of the whole question of scenery in literature. I could not at +the time, I cannot now, understand why the top boy’s summary was +not sufficient. With all due deference to the poet, whoever he +may have been, one cannot but acknowledge that his wood was, and could +not be otherwise than, “the usual sort of a wood.”</p> + +<p>I could describe the Black Forest to you at great length. I +could translate to you Hebel, the poet of the Black Forest. I +could write pages concerning its rocky gorges and its smiling valleys, +its pine-clad slopes, its rock-crowned summits, its foaming rivulets +(where the tidy German has not condemned them to flow respectably through +wooden troughs or drainpipes), its white villages, its lonely farmsteads.</p> + +<p>But I am haunted by the suspicion you might skip all this. +Were you sufficiently conscientious—or weak-minded enough—not +to do so, I should, all said and done, succeed in conveying to you only +an impression much better summed up in the simple words of the unpretentious +guide book:</p> + +<p>“A picturesque, mountainous district, bounded on the south +and the west by the plain of the Rhine, towards which its spurs descend +precipitately. Its geological formation consists chiefly of variegated +sandstone and granite; its lower heights being covered with extensive +pine forests. It is well watered with numerous streams, while +its populous valleys are fertile and well cultivated. The inns +are good; but the local wines should be partaken of by the stranger +with discretion.”</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>CHAPTER VI</h2> + +<p class="letter"> +Why we went to Hanover—Something they do better abroad—The +art of polite foreign conversation, as taught in English schools—A +true history, now told for the first time—The French joke, as +provided for the amusement of British youth—Fatherly instincts +of Harris—The road-waterer, considered as an artist—Patriotism +of George—What Harris ought to have done—What he did—We +save Harris’s life—A sleepless city—The cab-horse +as a critic.</p> + +<p>We arrived in Hamburg on Friday after a smooth and uneventful voyage; +and from Hamburg we travelled to Berlin by way of Hanover. It +is not the most direct route. I can only account for our visit +to Hanover as the nigger accounted to the magistrate for his appearance +in the Deacon’s poultry-yard.</p> + +<p>“Well?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, sar, what the constable sez is quite true, sar; I was +dar, sar.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, so you admit it? And what were you doing with a +sack, pray, in Deacon Abraham’s poultry-yard at twelve o’clock +at night?”</p> + +<p>“I’se gwine ter tell yer, sar; yes, sar. I’d +been to Massa Jordan’s wid a sack of melons. Yes, sar; an’ +Massa Jordan he wuz very ’greeable, an’ axed me for ter +come in.”</p> + +<p>“Well?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, sar, very ’greeable man is Massa Jordan. +An’ dar we sat a talking an’ a talking—”</p> + +<p>“Very likely. What we want to know is what you were doing +in the Deacon’s poultry-yard?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, sar, dat’s what I’se cumming to. It +wuz ver’ late ’fore I left Massa Jordan’s, an’ +den I sez ter mysel’, sez I, now yer jest step out with yer best +leg foremost, Ulysses, case yer gets into trouble wid de ole woman. +Ver’ talkative woman she is, sar, very—”</p> + +<p>“Yes, never mind her; there are other people very talkative +in this town besides your wife. Deacon Abraham’s house is +half a mile out of your way home from Mr. Jordan’s. How +did you get there?”</p> + +<p>“Dat’s what I’m a-gwine ter explain, sar.”</p> + +<p>“I am glad of that. And how do you propose to do it?”</p> + +<p>“Well, I’se thinkin’, sar, I must ha’ digressed.”</p> + +<p>I take it we digressed a little.</p> + +<p>At first, from some reason or other, Hanover strikes you as an uninteresting +town, but it grows upon you. It is in reality two towns; a place +of broad, modern, handsome streets and tasteful gardens; side by side +with a sixteenth-century town, where old timbered houses overhang the +narrow lanes; where through low archways one catches glimpses of galleried +courtyards, once often thronged, no doubt, with troops of horse, or +blocked with lumbering coach and six, waiting its rich merchant owner, +and his fat placid Frau, but where now children and chickens scuttle +at their will; while over the carved balconies hang dingy clothes a-drying.</p> + +<p>A singularly English atmosphere hovers over Hanover, especially on +Sundays, when its shuttered shops and clanging bells give to it the +suggestion of a sunnier London. Nor was this British Sunday atmosphere +apparent only to myself, else I might have attributed it to imagination; +even George felt it. Harris and I, returning from a short stroll +with our cigars after lunch on the Sunday afternoon, found him peacefully +slumbering in the smoke-room’s easiest chair.</p> + +<p>“After all,” said Harris, “there is something about +the British Sunday that appeals to the man with English blood in his +veins. I should be sorry to see it altogether done away with, +let the new generation say what it will.”</p> + +<p>And taking one each end of the ample settee, we kept George company.</p> + +<p>To Hanover one should go, they say, to learn the best German. +The disadvantage is that outside Hanover, which is only a small province, +nobody understands this best German. Thus you have to decide whether +to speak good German and remain in Hanover, or bad German and travel +about. Germany being separated so many centuries into a dozen +principalities, is unfortunate in possessing a variety of dialects. +Germans from Posen wishful to converse with men of Wurtemburg, have +to talk as often as not in French or English; and young ladies who have +received an expensive education in Westphalia surprise and disappoint +their parents by being unable to understand a word said to them in Mechlenberg. +An English-speaking foreigner, it is true, would find himself equally +nonplussed among the Yorkshire wolds, or in the purlieus of Whitechapel; +but the cases are not on all fours. Throughout Germany it is not +only in the country districts and among the uneducated that dialects +are maintained. Every province has practically its own language, +of which it is proud and retentive. An educated Bavarian will +admit to you that, academically speaking, the North German is more correct; +but he will continue to speak South German and to teach it to his children.</p> + +<p>In the course of the century, I am inclined to think that Germany +will solve her difficulty in this respect by speaking English. +Every boy and girl in Germany, above the peasant class, speaks English. +Were English pronunciation less arbitrary, there is not the slightest +doubt but that in the course of a very few years, comparatively speaking, +it would become the language of the world. All foreigners agree +that, grammatically, it is the easiest language of any to learn. +A German, comparing it with his own language, where every word in every +sentence is governed by at least four distinct and separate rules, tells +you that English has no grammar. A good many English people would +seem to have come to the same conclusion; but they are wrong. +As a matter of fact, there is an English grammar, and one of these days +our schools will recognise the fact, and it will be taught to our children, +penetrating maybe even into literary and journalistic circles. +But at present we appear to agree with the foreigner that it is a quantity +neglectable. English pronunciation is the stumbling-block to our +progress. English spelling would seem to have been designed chiefly +as a disguise to pronunciation. It is a clever idea, calculated +to check presumption on the part of the foreigner; but for that he would +learn it in a year.</p> + +<p>For they have a way of teaching languages in Germany that is not +our way, and the consequence is that when the German youth or maiden +leaves the gymnasium or high school at fifteen, “it” (as +in Germany one conveniently may say) can understand and speak the tongue +it has been learning. In England we have a method that for obtaining +the least possible result at the greatest possible expenditure of time +and money is perhaps unequalled. An English boy who has been through +a good middle-class school in England can talk to a Frenchman, slowly +and with difficulty, about female gardeners and aunts; conversation +which, to a man possessed perhaps of neither, is liable to pall. +Possibly, if he be a bright exception, he may be able to tell the time, +or make a few guarded observations concerning the weather. No +doubt he could repeat a goodly number of irregular verbs by heart; only, +as a matter of fact, few foreigners care to listen to their own irregular +verbs, recited by young Englishmen. Likewise he might be able +to remember a choice selection of grotesquely involved French idioms, +such as no modern Frenchman has ever heard or understands when he does +hear.</p> + +<p>The explanation is that, in nine cases out of ten, he has learnt +French from an “Ahn’s First-Course.” The history +of this famous work is remarkable and instructive. The book was +originally written for a joke, by a witty Frenchman who had resided +for some years in England. He intended it as a satire upon the +conversational powers of British society. From this point of view +it was distinctly good. He submitted it to a London publishing +firm. The manager was a shrewd man. He read the book through. +Then he sent for the author.</p> + +<p>“This book of yours,” said he to the author, “is +very clever. I have laughed over it myself till the tears came.”</p> + +<p>“I am delighted to hear you say so,” replied the pleased +Frenchman. “I tried to be truthful without being unnecessarily +offensive.”</p> + +<p>“It is most amusing,” concurred the manager; “and +yet published as a harmless joke, I feel it would fail.”</p> + +<p>The author’s face fell.</p> + +<p>“Its humour,” proceeded the manager, “would be +denounced as forced and extravagant. It would amuse the thoughtful +and intelligent, but from a business point of view that portion of the +public are never worth considering. But I have an idea,” +continued the manager. He glanced round the room to be sure they +were alone, and leaning forward sunk his voice to a whisper. “My +notion is to publish it as a serious work for the use of schools!”</p> + +<p>The author stared, speechless.</p> + +<p>“I know the English schoolman,” said the manager; “this +book will appeal to him. It will exactly fit in with his method. +Nothing sillier, nothing more useless for the purpose will he ever discover. +He will smack his lips over the book, as a puppy licks up blacking.”</p> + +<p>The author, sacrificing art to greed, consented. They altered +the title and added a vocabulary, but left the book otherwise as it +was.</p> + +<p>The result is known to every schoolboy. “Ahn” became +the palladium of English philological education. If it no longer +retains its ubiquity, it is because something even less adaptable to +the object in view has been since invented.</p> + +<p>Lest, in spite of all, the British schoolboy should obtain, even +from the like of “Ahn,” some glimmering of French, the British +educational method further handicaps him by bestowing upon him the assistance +of, what is termed in the prospectus, “A native gentleman.” +This native French gentleman, who, by-the-by, is generally a Belgian, +is no doubt a most worthy person, and can, it is true, understand and +speak his own language with tolerable fluency. There his qualifications +cease. Invariably he is a man with a quite remarkable inability +to teach anybody anything. Indeed, he would seem to be chosen +not so much as an instructor as an amuser of youth. He is always +a comic figure. No Frenchman of a dignified appearance would be +engaged for any English school. If he possess by nature a few +harmless peculiarities, calculated to cause merriment, so much the more +is he esteemed by his employers. The class naturally regards him +as an animated joke. The two to four hours a week that are deliberately +wasted on this ancient farce, are looked forward to by the boys as a +merry interlude in an otherwise monotonous existence. And then, +when the proud parent takes his son and heir to Dieppe merely to discover +that the lad does not know enough to call a cab, he abuses not the system, +but its innocent victim.</p> + +<p>I confine my remarks to French, because that is the only language +we attempt to teach our youth. An English boy who could speak +German would be looked down upon as unpatriotic. Why we waste +time in teaching even French according to this method I have never been +able to understand. A perfect unacquaintance with a language is +respectable. But putting aside comic journalists and lady novelists, +for whom it is a business necessity, this smattering of French which +we are so proud to possess only serves to render us ridiculous.</p> + +<p>In the German school the method is somewhat different. One +hour every day is devoted to the same language. The idea is not +to give the lad time between each lesson to forget what he learned at +the last; the idea is for him to get on. There is no comic foreigner +provided for his amusement. The desired language is taught by +a German school-master who knows it inside and out as thoroughly as +he knows his own. Maybe this system does not provide the German +youth with that perfection of foreign accent for which the British tourist +is in every land remarkable, but it has other advantages. The +boy does not call his master “froggy,” or “sausage,” +nor prepare for the French or English hour any exhibition of homely +wit whatever. He just sits there, and for his own sake tries to +learn that foreign tongue with as little trouble to everybody concerned +as possible. When he has left school he can talk, not about penknives +and gardeners and aunts merely, but about European politics, history, +Shakespeare, or the musical glasses, according to the turn the conversation +may take.</p> + +<p>Viewing the German people from an Anglo-Saxon standpoint, it may +be that in this book I shall find occasion to criticise them: but on +the other hand there is much that we might learn from them; and in the +matter of common sense, as applied to education, they can give us ninety-nine +in a hundred and beat us with one hand.</p> + +<p>The beautiful wood of the Eilenriede bounds Hanover on the south +and west, and here occurred a sad drama in which Harris took a prominent +part.</p> + +<p>We were riding our machines through this wood on the Monday afternoon +in the company of many other cyclists, for it is a favourite resort +with the Hanoverians on a sunny afternoon, and its shady pathways are +then filled with happy, thoughtless folk. Among them rode a young +and beautiful girl on a machine that was new. She was evidently +a novice on the bicycle. One felt instinctively that there would +come a moment when she would require help, and Harris, with his accustomed +chivalry, suggested we should keep near her. Harris, as he occasionally +explains to George and to myself, has daughters of his own, or, to speak +more correctly, a daughter, who as the years progress will no doubt +cease practising catherine wheels in the front garden, and will grow +up into a beautiful and respectable young lady. This naturally +gives Harris an interest in all beautiful girls up to the age of thirty-five +or thereabouts; they remind him, so he says, of home.</p> + +<p>We had ridden for about two miles, when we noticed, a little ahead +of us in a space where five ways met, a man with a hose, watering the +roads. The pipe, supported at each joint by a pair of tiny wheels, +writhed after him as he moved, suggesting a gigantic-worm, from whose +open neck, as the man, gripping it firmly in both hands, pointing it +now this way, and now that, now elevating it, now depressing it, poured +a strong stream of water at the rate of about a gallon a second.</p> + +<p>“What a much better method than ours,” observed Harris, +enthusiastically. Harris is inclined to be chronically severe +on all British institutions. “How much simpler, quicker, +and more economical! You see, one man by this method can in five +minutes water a stretch of road that would take us with our clumsy lumbering +cart half an hour to cover.”</p> + +<p>George, who was riding behind me on the tandem, said, “Yes, +and it is also a method by which with a little carelessness a man could +cover a good many people in a good deal less time than they could get +out of the way.”</p> + +<p>George, the opposite to Harris, is British to the core. I remember +George quite patriotically indignant with Harris once for suggesting +the introduction of the guillotine into England.</p> + +<p>“It is so much neater,” said Harris.</p> + +<p>“I don’t care if it is,” said George; “I’m +an Englishman; hanging is good enough for me.”</p> + +<p>“Our water-cart may have its disadvantages,” continued +George, “but it can only make you uncomfortable about the legs, +and you can avoid it. This is the sort of machine with which a +man can follow you round the corner and upstairs.”</p> + +<p>“It fascinates me to watch them,” said Harris. +“They are so skilful. I have seen a man from the corner +of a crowded square in Strassburg cover every inch of ground, and not +so much as wet an apron string. It is marvellous how they judge +their distance. They will send the water up to your toes, and +then bring it over your head so that it falls around your heels. +They can—”</p> + +<p>“Ease up a minute,” said George.</p> + +<p>I said: “Why?”</p> + +<p>He said: “I am going to get off and watch the rest of this +show from behind a tree. There may be great performers in this +line, as Harris says; this particular artist appears to me to lack something. +He has just soused a dog, and now he’s busy watering a sign-post. +I am going to wait till he has finished.”</p> + +<p>“Nonsense,” said Harris; “he won’t wet you.”</p> + +<p>“That is precisely what I am going to make sure of,” +answered George, saying which he jumped off, and, taking up a position +behind a remarkably fine elm, pulled out and commenced filling his pipe.</p> + +<p>I did not care to take the tandem on by myself, so I stepped off +and joined him, leaving the machine against a tree. Harris shouted +something or other about our being a disgrace to the land that gave +us birth, and rode on.</p> + +<p>The next moment I heard a woman’s cry of distress. Glancing +round the stem of the tree, I perceived that it proceeded from the young +and elegant lady before mentioned, whom, in our interest concerning +the road-waterer, we had forgotten. She was riding her machine +steadily and straightly through a drenching shower of water from the +hose. She appeared to be too paralysed either to get off or turn +her wheel aside. Every instant she was becoming wetter, while +the man with the hose, who was either drunk or blind, continued to pour +water upon her with utter indifference. A dozen voices yelled +imprecations upon him, but he took no heed whatever.</p> + +<p>Harris, his fatherly nature stirred to its depths, did at this point +what, under the circumstances, was quite the right and proper thing +to do. Had he acted throughout with the same coolness and judgment +he then displayed, he would have emerged from that incident the hero +of the hour, instead of, as happened, riding away followed by insult +and threat. Without a moment’s hesitation he spurted at +the man, sprang to the ground, and, seizing the hose by the nozzle, +attempted to wrest it away.</p> + +<p>What he ought to have done, what any man retaining his common sense +would have done the moment he got his hands upon the thing, was to turn +off the tap. Then he might have played foot-ball with the man, +or battledore and shuttlecock as he pleased; and the twenty or thirty +people who had rushed forward to assist would have only applauded. +His idea, however, as he explained to us afterwards, was to take away +the hose from the man, and, for punishment, turn it upon the fool himself. +The waterman’s idea appeared to be the same, namely, to retain +the hose as a weapon with which to soak Harris. Of course, the +result was that, between them, they soused every dead and living thing +within fifty yards, except themselves. One furious man, too drenched +to care what more happened to him, leapt into the arena and also took +a hand. The three among them proceeded to sweep the compass with +that hose. They pointed it to heaven, and the water descended +upon the people in the form of an equinoctial storm. They pointed +it downwards, and sent the water in rushing streams that took people +off their feet, or caught them about the waist line, and doubled them +up.</p> + +<p>Not one of them would loosen his grip upon the hose, not one of them +thought to turn the water off. You might have concluded they were +struggling with some primeval force of nature. In forty-five seconds, +so George said, who was timing it, they had swept that circus bare of +every living thing except one dog, who, dripping like a water nymph, +rolled over by the force of water, now on this side, now on that, still +gallantly staggered again and again to its feet to bark defiance at +what it evidently regarded as the powers of hell let loose.</p> + +<p>Men and women left their machines upon the ground, and flew into +the woods. From behind every tree of importance peeped out wet, +angry heads.</p> + +<p>At last, there arrived upon the scene one man of sense. Braving +all things, he crept to the hydrant, where still stood the iron key, +and screwed it down. And then from forty trees began to creep +more or less soaked human beings, each one with something to say.</p> + +<p>At first I fell to wondering whether a stretcher or a clothes basket +would be the more useful for the conveyance of Harris’s remains +back to the hotel. I consider that George’s promptness on +that occasion saved Harris’s life. Being dry, and therefore +able to run quicker, he was there before the crowd. Harris was +for explaining things, but George cut him short.</p> + +<p>“You get on that,” said George, handing him his bicycle, +“and go. They don’t know we belong to you, and you +may trust us implicitly not to reveal the secret. We’ll +hang about behind, and get in their way. Ride zig-zag in case +they shoot.”</p> + +<p>I wish this book to be a strict record of fact, unmarred by exaggeration, +and therefore I have shown my description of this incident to Harris, +lest anything beyond bald narrative may have crept into it. Harris +maintains it is exaggerated, but admits that one or two people may have +been “sprinkled.” I have offered to turn a street +hose on him at a distance of five-and-twenty yards, and take his opinion +afterwards, as to whether “sprinkled” is the adequate term, +but he has declined the test. Again, he insists there could not +have been more than half a dozen people, at the outside, involved in +the catastrophe, that forty is a ridiculous misstatement. I have +offered to return with him to Hanover and make strict inquiry into the +matter, and this offer he has likewise declined. Under these circumstances, +I maintain that mine is a true and restrained narrative of an event +that is, by a certain number of Hanoverians, remembered with bitterness +unto this very day.</p> + +<p>We left Hanover that same evening, and arrived at Berlin in time +for supper and an evening stroll. Berlin is a disappointing town; +its centre over-crowded, its outlying parts lifeless; its one famous +street, Unter den Linden, an attempt to combine Oxford Street with the +Champs Elysée, singularly unimposing, being much too wide for +its size; its theatres dainty and charming, where acting is considered +of more importance than scenery or dress, where long runs are unknown, +successful pieces being played again and again, but never consecutively, +so that for a week running you may go to the same Berlin theatre, and +see a fresh play every night; its opera house unworthy of it; its two +music halls, with an unnecessary suggestion of vulgarity and commonness +about them, ill-arranged and much too large for comfort. In the +Berlin cafés and restaurants, the busy time is from midnight +on till three. Yet most of the people who frequent them are up +again at seven. Either the Berliner has solved the great problem +of modern life, how to do without sleep, or, with Carlyle, he must be +looking forward to eternity.</p> + +<p>Personally, I know of no other town where such late hours are the +vogue, except St. Petersburg. But your St. Petersburger does not +get up early in the morning. At St. Petersburg, the music halls, +which it is the fashionable thing to attend <i>after</i> the theatre—a +drive to them taking half an hour in a swift sleigh—do not practically +begin till twelve. Through the Neva at four o’clock in the +morning you have to literally push your way; and the favourite trains +for travellers are those starting about five o’clock in the morning. +These trains save the Russian the trouble of getting up early. +He wishes his friends “Good-night,” and drives down to the +station comfortably after supper, without putting the house to any inconvenience.</p> + +<p>Potsdam, the Versailles to Berlin, is a beautiful little town, situate +among lakes and woods. Here in the shady ways of its quiet, far-stretching +park of Sans Souci, it is easy to imagine lean, snuffy Frederick “bummeling” +with shrill Voltaire.</p> + +<p>Acting on my advice, George and Harris consented not to stay long +in Berlin; but to push on to Dresden. Most that Berlin has to +show can be seen better elsewhere, and we decided to be content with +a drive through the town. The hotel porter introduced us to a +droschke driver, under whose guidance, so he assured us, we should see +everything worth seeing in the shortest possible time. The man +himself, who called for us at nine o’clock in the morning, was +all that could be desired. He was bright, intelligent, and well-informed; +his German was easy to understand, and he knew a little English with +which to eke it out on occasion. With the man himself there was +no fault to be found, but his horse was the most unsympathetic brute +I have ever sat behind.</p> + +<p>He took a dislike to us the moment he saw us. I was the first +to come out of the hotel. He turned his head, and looked me up +and down with a cold, glassy eye; and then he looked across at another +horse, a friend of his that was standing facing him. I knew what +he said. He had an expressive head, and he made no attempt to +disguise his thought.</p> + +<p>He said:</p> + +<p>“Funny things one does come across in the summer time, don’t +one?”</p> + +<p>George followed me out the next moment, and stood behind me. +The horse again turned his head and looked. I have never known +a horse that could twist himself as this horse did. I have seen +a camelopard do tricks with his neck that compelled one’s +attention, but this animal was more like the thing one dreams of after +a dusty days at Ascot, followed by a dinner with six old chums. +If I had seen his eyes looking at me from between his own hind legs, +I doubt if I should have been surprised. He seemed more amused +with George if anything, than with myself. He turned to his friend +again.</p> + +<p>“Extraordinary, isn’t it?” he remarked; “I +suppose there must be some place where they grow them”; and then +he commenced licking flies off his own left shoulder. I began +to wonder whether he had lost his mother when young, and had been brought +up by a cat.</p> + +<p>George and I climbed in, and sat waiting for Harris. He came +a moment later. Myself, I thought he looked rather neat. +He wore a white flannel knickerbocker suit, which he had had made specially +for bicycling in hot weather; his hat may have been a trifle out of +the common, but it did keep the sun off.</p> + +<p>The horse gave one look at him, said “Gott in Himmel!” +as plainly as ever horse spoke, and started off down Friedrich Strasse +at a brisk walk, leaving Harris and the driver standing on the pavement. +His owner called to him to stop, but he took no notice. They ran +after us, and overtook us at the corner of the Dorotheen Strasse. +I could not catch what the man said to the horse, he spoke quickly and +excitedly; but I gathered a few phrases, such as:</p> + +<p>“Got to earn my living somehow, haven’t I? Who +asked for your opinion? Aye, little you care so long as you can +guzzle.”</p> + +<p>The horse cut the conversation short by turning up the Dorotheen +Strasse on his own account. I think what he said was:</p> + +<p>“Come on then; don’t talk so much. Let’s +get the job over, and, where possible, let’s keep to the back +streets.”</p> + +<p>Opposite the Brandenburger Thor our driver hitched the reins to the +whip, climbed down, and came round to explain things to us. He +pointed out the Thiergarten, and then descanted to us of the Reichstag +House. He informed us of its exact height, length, and breadth, +after the manner of guides. Then he turned his attention to the +Gate. He said it was constructed of sandstone, in imitation of +the “Properleer” in Athens.</p> + +<p>At this point the horse, which had been occupying its leisure licking +its own legs, turned round its head. It did not say anything, +it just looked.</p> + +<p>The man began again nervously. This time he said it was an +imitation of the “Propeyedliar.”</p> + +<p>Here the horse proceeded up the Linden, and nothing would persuade +him not to proceed up the Linden. His owner expostulated with +him, but he continued to trot on. From the way he hitched his +shoulders as he moved, I somehow felt he was saying:</p> + +<p>“They’ve seen the Gate, haven’t they? Very +well, that’s enough. As for the rest, you don’t know +what you are talking about, and they wouldn’t understand you if +you did. You talk German.”</p> + +<p>It was the same throughout the length of the Linden. The horse +consented to stand still sufficiently long to enable us to have a good +look at each sight, and to hear the name of it. All explanation +and description he cut short by the simple process of moving on.</p> + +<p>“What these fellows want,” he seemed to say to himself, +“is to go home and tell people they have seen these things. +If I am doing them an injustice, if they are more intelligent than they +look, they can get better information than this old fool of mine is +giving them from the guide book. Who wants to know how high a +steeple is? You don’t remember it the next five minutes +when you are told, and if you do it is because you have got nothing +else in your head. He just tires me with his talk. Why doesn’t +he hurry up, and let us all get home to lunch?”</p> + +<p>Upon reflection, I am not sure that wall-eyed old brute had not sense +on its side. Anyhow, I know there have been occasions, with a +guide, when I would have been glad of its interference.</p> + +<p>But one is apt to “sin one’s mercies,” as the Scotch +say, and at the time we cursed that horse instead of blessing it.</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>CHAPTER VII</h2> + +<p class="letter"> +George wonders—German love of order—“The Band of +the Schwarzwald Blackbirds will perform at seven”—The china +dog—Its superiority over all other dogs—The German and the +solar system—A tidy country—The mountain valley as it ought +to be, according to the German idea—How the waters come down in +Germany—The scandal of Dresden—Harris gives an entertainment—It +is unappreciated—George and the aunt of him—George, a cushion, +and three damsels.</p> + +<p>At a point between Berlin and Dresden, George, who had, for the last +quarter of an hour or so, been looking very attentively out of the window, +said:</p> + +<p>“Why, in Germany, is it the custom to put the letter-box up +a tree? Why do they not fix it to the front door as we do? +I should hate having to climb up a tree to get my letters. Besides, +it is not fair to the postman. In addition to being most exhausting, +the delivery of letters must to a heavy man, on windy nights, be positively +dangerous work. If they will fix it to a tree, why not fix it +lower down, why always among the topmost branches? But, maybe, +I am misjudging the country,” he continued, a new idea occurring +to him. “Possibly the Germans, who are in many matters ahead +of us, have perfected a pigeon post. Even so, I cannot help thinking +they would have been wiser to train the birds, while they were about +it, to deliver the letters nearer the ground. Getting your letters +out of those boxes must be tricky work even to the average middle-aged +German.”</p> + +<p>I followed his gaze out of window. I said:</p> + +<p>“Those are not letter-boxes, they are birds’ nests. +You must understand this nation. The German loves birds, but he +likes tidy birds. A bird left to himself builds his nest just +anywhere. It is not a pretty object, according to the German notion +of prettiness. There is not a bit of paint on it anywhere, not +a plaster image all round, not even a flag. The nest finished, +the bird proceeds to live outside it. He drops things on the grass; +twigs, ends of worms, all sorts of things. He is indelicate. +He makes love, quarrels with his wife, and feeds the children quite +in public. The German householder is shocked. He says to +the bird:</p> + +<p>“‘For many things I like you. I like to look at +you. I like to hear you sing. But I don’t like your +ways. Take this little box, and put your rubbish inside where +I can’t see it. Come out when you want to sing; but let +your domestic arrangements be confined to the interior. Keep to +the box, and don’t make the garden untidy.’”</p> + +<p>In Germany one breathes in love of order with the air, in Germany +the babies beat time with their rattles, and the German bird has come +to prefer the box, and to regard with contempt the few uncivilised outcasts +who continue to build their nests in trees and hedges. In course +of time every German bird, one is confident, will have his proper place +in a full chorus. This promiscuous and desultory warbling of his +must, one feels, be irritating to the precise German mind; there is +no method in it. The music-loving German will organise him. +Some stout bird with a specially well-developed crop will be trained +to conduct him, and, instead of wasting himself in a wood at four o’clock +in the morning, he will, at the advertised time, sing in a beer garden, +accompanied by a piano. Things are drifting that way.</p> + +<p>Your German likes nature, but his idea of nature is a glorified Welsh +Harp. He takes great interest in his garden. He plants seven +rose trees on the north side and seven on the south, and if they do +not grow up all the same size and shape it worries him so that he cannot +sleep of nights. Every flower he ties to a stick. This interferes +with his view of the flower, but he has the satisfaction of knowing +it is there, and that it is behaving itself. The lake is lined +with zinc, and once a week he takes it up, carries it into the kitchen, +and scours it. In the geometrical centre of the grass plot, which +is sometimes as large as a tablecloth and is generally railed round, +he places a china dog. The Germans are very fond of dogs, but +as a rule they prefer them of china. The china dog never digs +holes in the lawn to bury bones, and never scatters a flower-bed to +the winds with his hind legs. From the German point of view, he +is the ideal dog. He stops where you put him, and he is never +where you do not want him. You can have him perfect in all points, +according to the latest requirements of the Kennel Club; or you can +indulge your own fancy and have something unique. You are not, +as with other dogs, limited to breed. In china, you can have a +blue dog or a pink dog. For a little extra, you can have a double-headed +dog.</p> + +<p>On a certain fixed date in the autumn the German stakes his flowers +and bushes to the earth, and covers them with Chinese matting; and on +a certain fixed date in the spring he uncovers them, and stands them +up again. If it happens to be an exceptionally fine autumn, or +an exceptionally late spring, so much the worse for the unfortunate +vegetable. No true German would allow his arrangements to be interfered +with by so unruly a thing as the solar system. Unable to regulate +the weather, he ignores it.</p> + +<p>Among trees, your German’s favourite is the poplar. Other +disorderly nations may sing the charms of the rugged oak, the spreading +chestnut, or the waving elm. To the German all such, with their +wilful, untidy ways, are eyesores. The poplar grows where it is +planted, and how it is planted. It has no improper rugged ideas +of its own. It does not want to wave or to spread itself. +It just grows straight and upright as a German tree should grow; and +so gradually the German is rooting out all other trees, and replacing +them with poplars.</p> + +<p>Your German likes the country, but he prefers it as the lady thought +she would the noble savage—more dressed. He likes his walk +through the wood—to a restaurant. But the pathway must not +be too steep, it must have a brick gutter running down one side of it +to drain it, and every twenty yards or so it must have its seat on which +he can rest and mop his brow; for your German would no more think of +sitting on the grass than would an English bishop dream of rolling down +One Tree Hill. He likes his view from the summit of the hill, +but he likes to find there a stone tablet telling him what to look at, +find a table and bench at which he can sit to partake of the frugal +beer and “belegte Semmel” he has been careful to bring with +him. If, in addition, he can find a police notice posted on a +tree, forbidding him to do something or other, that gives him an extra +sense of comfort and security.</p> + +<p>Your German is not averse even to wild scenery, provided it be not +too wild. But if he consider it too savage, he sets to work to +tame it. I remember, in the neighbourhood of Dresden, discovering +a picturesque and narrow valley leading down towards the Elbe. +The winding roadway ran beside a mountain torrent, which for a mile +or so fretted and foamed over rocks and boulders between wood-covered +banks. I followed it enchanted until, turning a corner, I suddenly +came across a gang of eighty or a hundred workmen. They were busy +tidying up that valley, and making that stream respectable. All +the stones that were impeding the course of the water they were carefully +picking out and carting away. The bank on either side they were +bricking up and cementing. The overhanging trees and bushes, the +tangled vines and creepers they were rooting up and trimming down. +A little further I came upon the finished work—the mountain valley +as it ought to be, according to German ideas. The water, now a +broad, sluggish stream, flowed over a level, gravelly bed, between two +walls crowned with stone coping. At every hundred yards it gently +descended down three shallow wooden platforms. For a space on +either side the ground had been cleared, and at regular intervals young +poplars planted. Each sapling was protected by a shield of wickerwork +and bossed by an iron rod. In the course of a couple of years +it is the hope of the local council to have “finished” that +valley throughout its entire length, and made it fit for a tidy-minded +lover of German nature to walk in. There will be a seat every +fifty yards, a police notice every hundred, and a restaurant every half-mile.</p> + +<p>They are doing the same from the Memel to the Rhine. They are +just tidying up the country. I remember well the Wehrthal. +It was once the most romantic ravine to be found in the Black Forest. +The last time I walked down it some hundreds of Italian workmen were +encamped there hard at work, training the wild little Wehr the way it +should go, bricking the banks for it here, blasting the rocks for it +there, making cement steps for it down which it can travel soberly and +without fuss.</p> + +<p>For in Germany there is no nonsense talked about untrammelled nature. +In Germany nature has got to behave herself, and not set a bad example +to the children. A German poet, noticing waters coming down as +Southey describes, somewhat inexactly, the waters coming down at Lodore, +would be too shocked to stop and write alliterative verse about them. +He would hurry away, and at once report them to the police. Then +their foaming and their shrieking would be of short duration.</p> + +<p>“Now then, now then, what’s all this about?” the +voice of German authority would say severely to the waters. “We +can’t have this sort of thing, you know. Come down quietly, +can’t you? Where do you think you are?”</p> + +<p>And the local German council would provide those waters with zinc +pipes and wooden troughs, and a corkscrew staircase, and show them how +to come down sensibly, in the German manner.</p> + +<p>It is a tidy land is Germany.</p> + +<p>We reached Dresden on the Wednesday evening, and stayed there over +the Sunday.</p> + +<p>Taking one consideration with another, Dresden, perhaps, is the most +attractive town in Germany; but it is a place to be lived in for a while +rather than visited. Its museums and galleries, its palaces and +gardens, its beautiful and historically rich environment, provide pleasure +for a winter, but bewilder for a week. It has not the gaiety of +Paris or Vienna, which quickly palls; its charms are more solidly German, +and more lasting. It is the Mecca of the musician. For five +shillings, in Dresden, you can purchase a stall at the opera house, +together, unfortunately, with a strong disinclination ever again to +take the trouble of sitting out a performance in any English, French, +or American opera house.</p> + +<p>The chief scandal of Dresden still centres round August the Strong, +“the Man of Sin,” as Carlyle always called him, who is popularly +reputed to have cursed Europe with over a thousand children. Castles +where he imprisoned this discarded mistress or that—one of them, +who persisted in her claim to a better title, for forty years, it is +said, poor lady! The narrow rooms where she ate her heart out +and died are still shown. Chateaux, shameful for this deed of +infamy or that, lie scattered round the neighbourhood like bones about +a battlefield; and most of your guide’s stories are such as the +“young person” educated in Germany had best not hear. +His life-sized portrait hangs in the fine Zwinger, which he built as +an arena for his wild beast fights when the people grew tired of them +in the market-place; a beetle-browed, frankly animal man, but with the +culture and taste that so often wait upon animalism. Modern Dresden +undoubtedly owes much to him.</p> + +<p>But what the stranger in Dresden stares at most is, perhaps, its +electric trams. These huge vehicles flash through the streets +at from ten to twenty miles an hour, taking curves and corners after +the manner of an Irish car driver. Everybody travels by them, +excepting only officers in uniform, who must not. Ladies in evening +dress, going to ball or opera, porters with their baskets, sit side +by side. They are all-important in the streets, and everything +and everybody makes haste to get out of their way. If you do not +get out of their way, and you still happen to be alive when picked up, +then on your recovery you are fined for having been in their way. +This teaches you to be wary of them.</p> + +<p>One afternoon Harris took a “bummel” by himself. +In the evening, as we sat listening to the band at the Belvedere, Harris +said, <i>à propos</i> of nothing in particular, “These +Germans have no sense of humour.”</p> + +<p>“What makes you think that?” I asked.</p> + +<p>“Why, this afternoon,” he answered, “I jumped on +one of those electric tramcars. I wanted to see the town, so I +stood outside on the little platform—what do you call it?”</p> + +<p>“The Stehplatz,” I suggested.</p> + +<p>“That’s it,” said Harris. “Well, you +know the way they shake you about, and how you have to look out for +the corners, and mind yourself when they stop and when they start?”</p> + +<p>I nodded.</p> + +<p>“There were about half a dozen of us standing there,” +he continued, “and, of course, I am not experienced. The +thing started suddenly, and that jerked me backwards. I fell against +a stout gentleman, just behind me. He could not have been standing +very firmly himself, and he, in his turn, fell back against a boy who +was carrying a trumpet in a green baize case. They never smiled, +neither the man nor the boy with the trumpet; they just stood there +and looked sulky. I was going to say I was sorry, but before I +could get the words out the tram eased up, for some reason or other, +and that, of course, shot me forward again, and I butted into a white-haired +old chap, who looked to me like a professor. Well, <i>he</i> never +smiled, never moved a muscle.”</p> + +<p>“Maybe, he was thinking of something else,” I suggested.</p> + +<p>“That could not have been the case with them all,” replied +Harris, “and in the course of that journey, I must have fallen +against every one of them at least three times. You see,” +explained Harris, “they knew when the corners were coming, and +in which direction to brace themselves. I, as a stranger, was +naturally at a disadvantage. The way I rolled and staggered about +that platform, clutching wildly now at this man and now at that, must +have been really comic. I don’t say it was high-class humour, +but it would have amused most people. Those Germans seemed to +see no fun in it whatever—just seemed anxious, that was all. +There was one man, a little man, who stood with his back against the +brake; I fell against him five times, I counted them. You would +have expected the fifth time would have dragged a laugh out of him, +but it didn’t; he merely looked tired. They are a dull lot.”</p> + +<p>George also had an adventure at Dresden. There was a shop near +the Altmarkt, in the window of which were exhibited some cushions for +sale. The proper business of the shop was handling of glass and +china; the cushions appeared to be in the nature of an experiment. +They were very beautiful cushions, hand-embroidered on satin. +We often passed the shop, and every time George paused and examined +those cushions. He said he thought his aunt would like one.</p> + +<p>George has been very attentive to this aunt of his during the journey. +He has written her quite a long letter every day, and from every town +we stop at he sends her off a present. To my mind, he is overdoing +the business, and more than once I have expostulated with him. +His aunt will be meeting other aunts, and talking to them; the whole +class will become disorganised and unruly. As a nephew, I object +to the impossible standard that George is setting up. But he will +not listen.</p> + +<p>Therefore it was that on the Saturday he left us after lunch, saying +he would go round to that shop and get one of those cushions for his +aunt. He said he would not be long, and suggested our waiting +for him.</p> + +<p>We waited for what seemed to me rather a long time. When he +rejoined us he was empty handed, and looked worried. We asked +him where his cushion was. He said he hadn’t got a cushion, +said he had changed his mind, said he didn’t think his aunt would +care for a cushion. Evidently something was amiss. We tried +to get at the bottom of it, but he was not communicative. Indeed, +his answers after our twentieth question or thereabouts became quite +short.</p> + +<p>In the evening, however, when he and I happened to be alone, he broached +the subject himself. He said:</p> + +<p>“They are somewhat peculiar in some things, these Germans.”</p> + +<p>I said: “What has happened?”</p> + +<p>“Well,” he answered, “there was that cushion I +wanted.”</p> + +<p>“For your aunt,” I remarked.</p> + +<p>“Why not?” he returned. He was huffy in a moment; +I never knew a man so touchy about an aunt. “Why shouldn’t +I send a cushion to my aunt?”</p> + +<p>“Don’t get excited,” I replied. “I +am not objecting; I respect you for it.”</p> + +<p>He recovered his temper, and went on:</p> + +<p>“There were four in the window, if you remember, all very much +alike, and each one labelled in plain figures twenty marks. I +don’t pretend to speak German fluently, but I can generally make +myself understood with a little effort, and gather the sense of what +is said to me, provided they don’t gabble. I went into the +shop. A young girl came up to me; she was a pretty, quiet little +soul, one might almost say, demure; not at all the sort of girl from +whom you would have expected such a thing. I was never more surprised +in all my life.”</p> + +<p>“Surprised about what?” I said.</p> + +<p>George always assumes you know the end of the story while he is telling +you the beginning; it is an annoying method.</p> + +<p>“At what happened,” replied George; “at what I +am telling you. She smiled and asked me what I wanted. I +understood that all right; there could have been no mistake about that. +I put down a twenty mark piece on the counter and said:</p> + +<p>“Please give me a cushion.”</p> + +<p>“She stared at me as if I had asked for a feather bed. +I thought, maybe, she had not heard, so I repeated it louder. +If I had chucked her under the chin she could not have looked more surprised +or indignant.</p> + +<p>“She said she thought I must be making a mistake.</p> + +<p>“I did not want to begin a long conversation and find myself +stranded. I said there was no mistake. I pointed to my twenty +mark piece, and repeated for the third time that I wanted a cushion, +‘a twenty mark cushion.’</p> + +<p>“Another girl came up, an elder girl; and the first girl repeated +to her what I had just said: she seemed quite excited about it. +The second girl did not believe her—did not think I looked the +sort of man who would want a cushion. To make sure, she put the +question to me herself.</p> + +<p>“‘Did you say you wanted a cushion?’ she asked.</p> + +<p>“‘I have said it three times,’ I answered. +‘I will say it again—I want a cushion.’</p> + +<p>“She said: ‘Then you can’t have one.’</p> + +<p>“I was getting angry by this time. If I hadn’t +really wanted the thing I should have walked out of the shop; but there +the cushions were in the window, evidently for sale. I didn’t +see <i>why</i> I couldn’t have one.</p> + +<p>“I said: ‘I will have one!’ It is a simple +sentence. I said it with determination.</p> + +<p>“A third girl came up at this point, the three representing, +I fancy, the whole force of the shop. She was a bright-eyed, saucy-looking +little wench, this last one. On any other occasion I might have +been pleased to see her; now, her coming only irritated me. I +didn’t see the need of three girls for this business.</p> + +<p>“The first two girls started explaining the thing to the third +girl, and before they were half-way through the third girl began to +giggle—she was the sort of girl who would giggle at anything. +That done, they fell to chattering like Jenny Wrens, all three together; +and between every half-dozen words they looked across at me; and the +more they looked at me the more the third girl giggled; and before they +had finished they were all three giggling, the little idiots; you might +have thought I was a clown, giving a private performance.</p> + +<p>“When she was steady enough to move, the third girl came up +to me; she was still giggling. She said:</p> + +<p>“‘If you get it, will you go?’</p> + +<p>“I did not quite understand her at first, and she repeated +it.</p> + +<p>“‘This cushion. When you’ve got it, will +you go—away—at once?’</p> + +<p>“I was only too anxious to go. I told her so. But, +I added I was not going without it. I had made up my mind to have +that cushion now if I stopped in the shop all night for it.</p> + +<p>“She rejoined the other two girls. I thought they were +going to get me the cushion and have done with the business. Instead +of that, the strangest thing possible happened. The two other +girls got behind the first girl, all three still giggling, Heaven knows +what about, and pushed her towards me. They pushed her close up +to me, and then, before I knew what was happening, she put her hands +on my shoulders, stood up on tiptoe, and kissed me. After which, +burying her face in her apron, she ran off, followed by the second girl. +The third girl opened the door for me, and so evidently expected me +to go, that in my confusion I went, leaving my twenty marks behind me. +I don’t say I minded the kiss, though I did not particularly want +it, while I did want the cushion. I don’t like to go back +to the shop. I cannot understand the thing at all.”</p> + +<p>I said: “What did you ask for?”</p> + +<p>He said: “A cushion”</p> + +<p>I said: “That is what you wanted, I know. What I mean +is, what was the actual German word you said.”</p> + +<p>He replied: “A kuss.”</p> + +<p>I said: “You have nothing to complain of. It is somewhat +confusing. A ‘kuss’ sounds as if it ought to be a +cushion, but it is not; it is a kiss, while a ‘kissen’ is +a cushion. You muddled up the two words—people have done +it before. I don’t know much about this sort of thing myself; +but you asked for a twenty mark kiss, and from your description of the +girl some people might consider the price reasonable. Anyhow, +I should not tell Harris. If I remember rightly, he also has an +aunt.”</p> + +<p>George agreed with me it would be better not.</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>CHAPTER VIII</h2> + +<p class="letter"> +Mr. and Miss Jones, of Manchester—The benefits of cocoa—A +hint to the Peace Society—The window as a mediaeval argument—The +favourite Christian recreation—The language of the guide—How +to repair the ravages of time—George tries a bottle—The +fate of the German beer drinker—Harris and I resolve to do a good +action—The usual sort of statue—Harris and his friends—A +pepperless Paradise—Women and towns.</p> + +<p>We were on our way to Prague, and were waiting in the great hall +of the Dresden Station until such time as the powers-that-be should +permit us on to the platform. George, who had wandered to the +bookstall, returned to us with a wild look in his eyes. He said:</p> + +<p>“I’ve seen it.”</p> + +<p>I said, “Seen what?”</p> + +<p>He was too excited to answer intelligently. He said:</p> + +<p>“It’s here. It’s coming this way, both of +them. If you wait, you’ll see it for yourselves. I’m +not joking; it’s the real thing.”</p> + +<p>As is usual about this period, some paragraphs, more or less serious, +had been appearing in the papers concerning the sea-serpent, and I thought +for the moment he must be referring to this. A moment’s +reflection, however, told me that here, in the middle of Europe, three +hundred miles from the coast, such a thing was impossible. Before +I could question him further, he seized me by the arm.</p> + +<p>“Look!” he said; “now am I exaggerating?”</p> + +<p>I turned my head and saw what, I suppose, few living Englishmen have +ever seen before—the travelling Britisher according to the Continental +idea, accompanied by his daughter. They were coming towards us +in the flesh and blood, unless we were dreaming, alive and concrete—the +English “Milor” and the English “Mees,” as for +generations they have been portrayed in the Continental comic press +and upon the Continental stage. They were perfect in every detail. +The man was tall and thin, with sandy hair, a huge nose, and long Dundreary +whiskers. Over a pepper-and-salt suit he wore a light overcoat, +reaching almost to his heels. His white helmet was ornamented +with a green veil; a pair of opera-glasses hung at his side, and in +his lavender-gloved hand he carried an alpenstock a little taller than +himself. His daughter was long and angular. Her dress I +cannot describe: my grandfather, poor gentleman, might have been able +to do so; it would have been more familiar to him. I can only +say that it appeared to me unnecessarily short, exhibiting a pair of +ankles—if I may be permitted to refer to such points—that, +from an artistic point of view, called rather for concealment. +Her hat made me think of Mrs. Hemans; but why I cannot explain. +She wore side-spring boots—“prunella,” I believe, +used to be the trade name—mittens, and pince-nez. She also +carried an alpenstock (there is not a mountain within a hundred miles +of Dresden) and a black bag strapped to her waist. Her teeth stuck +out like a rabbit’s, and her figure was that of a bolster on stilts.</p> + +<p>Harris rushed for his camera, and of course could not find it; he +never can when he wants it. Whenever we see Harris scuttling up +and down like a lost dog, shouting, “Where’s my camera? +What the dickens have I done with my camera? Don’t either +of you remember where I put my camera?”—then we know that +for the first time that day he has come across something worth photographing. +Later on, he remembered it was in his bag; that is where it would be +on an occasion like this.</p> + +<p>They were not content with appearance; they acted the thing to the +letter. They walked gaping round them at every step. The +gentleman had an open Baedeker in his hand, and the lady carried a phrase +book. They talked French that nobody could understand, and German +that they could not translate themselves! The man poked at officials +with his alpenstock to attract their attention, and the lady, her eye +catching sight of an advertisement of somebody’s cocoa, said “Shocking!” +and turned the other way.</p> + +<p>Really, there was some excuse for her. One notices, even in +England, the home of the proprieties, that the lady who drinks cocoa +appears, according to the poster, to require very little else in this +world; a yard or so of art muslin at the most. On the Continent +she dispenses, so far as one can judge, with every other necessity of +life. Not only is cocoa food and drink to her, it should be clothes +also, according to the idea of the cocoa manufacturer. But this +by the way.</p> + +<p>Of course, they immediately became the centre of attraction. +By being able to render them some slight assistance, I gained the advantage +of five minutes’ conversation with them. They were very +affable. The gentleman told me his name was Jones, and that he +came from Manchester, but he did not seem to know what part of Manchester, +or where Manchester was. I asked him where he was going to, but +he evidently did not know. He said it depended. I asked +him if he did not find an alpenstock a clumsy thing to walk about with +through a crowded town; he admitted that occasionally it did get in +the way. I asked him if he did not find a veil interfere with +his view of things; he explained that you only wore it when the flies +became troublesome. I enquired of the lady if she did not find +the wind blow cold; she said she had noticed it, especially at the corners. +I did not ask these questions one after another as I have here put them +down; I mixed them up with general conversation, and we parted on good +terms.</p> + +<p>I have pondered much upon the apparition, and have come to a definite +opinion. A man I met later at Frankfort, and to whom I described +the pair, said he had seen them himself in Paris, three weeks after +the termination of the Fashoda incident; while a traveller for some +English steel works whom we met in Strassburg remembered having seen +them in Berlin during the excitement caused by the Transvaal question. +My conclusion is that they were actors out of work, hired to do this +thing in the interest of international peace. The French Foreign +Office, wishful to allay the anger of the Parisian mob clamouring for +war with England, secured this admirable couple and sent them round +the town. You cannot be amused at a thing, and at the same time +want to kill it. The French nation saw the English citizen and +citizeness—no caricature, but the living reality—and their +indignation exploded in laughter. The success of the stratagem +prompted them later on to offer their services to the German Government, +with the beneficial results that we all know.</p> + +<p>Our own Government might learn the lesson. It might be as well +to keep near Downing Street a few small, fat Frenchmen, to be sent round +the country when occasion called for it, shrugging their shoulders and +eating frog sandwiches; or a file of untidy, lank-haired Germans might +be retained, to walk about, smoking long pipes, saying “So.” +The public would laugh and exclaim, “War with such? It would +be too absurd.” Failing the Government, I recommend the +scheme to the Peace Society.</p> + +<p>Our visit to Prague we were compelled to lengthen somewhat. +Prague is one of the most interesting towns in Europe. Its stones +are saturated with history and romance; its every suburb must have been +a battlefield. It is the town that conceived the Reformation and +hatched the Thirty Years’ War. But half Prague’s troubles, +one imagines, might have been saved to it, had it possessed windows +less large and temptingly convenient. The first of these mighty +catastrophes it set rolling by throwing the seven Catholic councillors +from the windows of its Rathhaus on to the pikes of the Hussites below. +Later, it gave the signal for the second by again throwing the Imperial +councillors from the windows of the old Burg in the Hradschin—Prague’s +second “Fenstersturz.” Since, other fateful questions +have been decide in Prague, one assumes from their having been concluded +without violence that such must have been discussed in cellars. +The window, as an argument, one feels, would always have proved too +strong a temptation to any true-born Praguer.</p> + +<p>In the Teynkirche stands the worm-eaten pulpit from which preached +John Huss. One may hear from the selfsame desk to-day the voice +of a Papist priest, while in far-off Constance a rude block of stone, +half ivy hidden, marks the spot where Huss and Jerome died burning at +the stake. History is fond of her little ironies. In this +same Teynkirche lies buried Tycho Brahe, the astronomer, who made the +common mistake of thinking the earth, with its eleven hundred creeds +and one humanity, the centre of the universe; but who otherwise observed +the stars clearly.</p> + +<p>Through Prague’s dirty, palace-bordered alleys must have pressed +often in hot haste blind Ziska and open-minded Wallenstein—they +have dubbed him “The Hero” in Prague; and the town is honestly +proud of having owned him for citizen. In his gloomy palace in +the Waldstein-Platz they show as a sacred spot the cabinet where he +prayed, and seem to have persuaded themselves he really had a soul. +Its steep, winding ways must have been choked a dozen times, now by +Sigismund’s flying legions, followed by fierce-killing Tarborites, +and now by pale Protestants pursued by the victorious Catholics of Maximilian. +Now Saxons, now Bavarians, and now French; now the saints of Gustavus +Adolphus, and now the steel fighting machines of Frederick the Great, +have thundered at its gates and fought upon its bridges.</p> + +<p>The Jews have always been an important feature of Prague. Occasionally +they have assisted the Christians in their favourite occupation of slaughtering +one another, and the great flag suspended from the vaulting of the Altneuschule +testifies to the courage with which they helped Catholic Ferdinand to +resist the Protestant Swedes. The Prague Ghetto was one of the +first to be established in Europe, and in the tiny synagogue, still +standing, the Jew of Prague has worshipped for eight hundred years, +his women folk devoutly listening, without, at the ear holes provided +for them in the massive walls. A Jewish cemetery adjacent, “Bethchajim, +or the House of Life,” seems as though it were bursting with its +dead. Within its narrow acre it was the law of centuries that +here or nowhere must the bones of Israel rest. So the worn and +broken tombstones lie piled in close confusion, as though tossed and +tumbled by the struggling host beneath.</p> + +<p>The Ghetto walls have long been levelled, but the living Jews of +Prague still cling to their foetid lanes, though these are being rapidly +replaced by fine new streets that promise to eventually transform this +quarter into the handsomest part of the town.</p> + +<p>At Dresden they advised us not to talk German in Prague. For +years racial animosity between the German minority and the Czech majority +has raged throughout Bohemia, and to be mistaken for a German in certain +streets of Prague is inconvenient to a man whose staying powers in a +race are not what once they were. However, we did talk German +in certain streets in Prague; it was a case of talking German or nothing. +The Czech dialect is said to be of great antiquity and of highly scientific +cultivation. Its alphabet contains forty-two letters, suggestive +to a stranger of Chinese. It is not a language to be picked up +in a hurry. We decided that on the whole there would be less risk +to our constitution in keeping to German, and as a matter of fact no +harm came to us. The explanation I can only surmise. The +Praguer is an exceedingly acute person; some subtle falsity of accent, +some slight grammatical inaccuracy, may have crept into our German, +revealing to him the fact that, in spite of all appearances to the contrary, +we were no true-born Deutscher. I do not assert this; I put it +forward as a possibility.</p> + +<p>To avoid unnecessary danger, however, we did our sight-seeing with +the aid of a guide. No guide I have ever come across is perfect. +This one had two distinct failings. His English was decidedly +weak. Indeed, it was not English at all. I do not know what +you would call it. It was not altogether his fault; he had learnt +English from a Scotch lady. I understand Scotch fairly well—to +keep abreast of modern English literature this is necessary,—but +to understand broad Scotch talked with a Sclavonic accent, occasionally +relieved by German modifications, taxes the intelligence. For +the first hour it was difficult to rid one’s self of the conviction +that the man was choking. Every moment we expected him to die +on our hands. In the course of the morning we grew accustomed +to him, and rid ourselves of the instinct to throw him on his back every +time he opened his mouth, and tear his clothes from him. Later, +we came to understand a part of what he said, and this led to the discovery +of his second failing.</p> + +<p>It would seem he had lately invented a hair-restorer, which he had +persuaded a local chemist to take up and advertise. Half his time +he had been pointing out to us, not the beauties of Prague, but the +benefits likely to accrue to the human race from the use of this concoction; +and the conventional agreement with which, under the impression he was +waxing eloquent concerning views and architecture, we had met his enthusiasm +he had attributed to sympathetic interest in this wretched wash of his.</p> + +<p>The result was that now there was no keeping him away from the subject. +Ruined palaces and crumbling churches he dismissed with curt reference +as mere frivolities, encouraging a morbid taste for the decadent. +His duty, as he saw it, was not to lead us to dwell upon the ravages +of time, but rather to direct our attention to the means of repairing +them. What had we to do with broken-headed heroes, or bald-headed +saints? Our interest should be surely in the living world; in +the maidens with their flowing tresses, or the flowing tresses they +might have, by judicious use of “Kophkeo,” in the young +men with their fierce moustaches—as pictured on the label.</p> + +<p>Unconsciously, in his own mind, he had divided the world into two +sections. The Past (“Before Use”), a sickly, disagreeable-looking, +uninteresting world. The Future (“After Use”) a fat, +jolly, God-bless-everybody sort of world; and this unfitted him as a +guide to scenes of mediaeval history.</p> + +<p>He sent us each a bottle of the stuff to our hotel. It appeared +that in the early part of our converse with him we had, unwittingly, +clamoured for it. Personally, I can neither praise it nor condemn +it. A long series of disappointments has disheartened me; added +to which a permanent atmosphere of paraffin, however faint, is apt to +cause remark, especially in the case of a married man. Now, I +never try even the sample.</p> + +<p>I gave my bottle to George. He asked for it to send to a man +he knew in Leeds. I learnt later that Harris had given him his +bottle also, to send to the same man.</p> + +<p>A suggestion of onions has clung to this tour since we left Prague. +George has noticed it himself. He attributes it to the prevalence +of garlic in European cooking.</p> + +<p>It was in Prague that Harris and I did a kind and friendly thing +to George. We had noticed for some time past that George was getting +too fond of Pilsener beer. This German beer is an insidious drink, +especially in hot weather; but it does not do to imbibe too freely of +it. It does not get into your head, but after a time it spoils +your waist. I always say to myself on entering Germany:</p> + +<p>“Now, I will drink no German beer. The white wine of +the country, with a little soda-water; perhaps occasionally a glass +of Ems or potash. But beer, never—or, at all events, hardly +ever.”</p> + +<p>It is a good and useful resolution, which I recommend to all travellers. +I only wish I could keep to it myself. George, although I urged +him, refused to bind himself by any such hard and fast limit. +He said that in moderation German beer was good.</p> + +<p>“One glass in the morning,” said George, “one in +the evening, or even two. That will do no harm to anyone.”</p> + +<p>Maybe he was right. It was his half-dozen glasses that troubled +Harris and myself.</p> + +<p>“We ought to do something to stop it,” said Harris; “it +is becoming serious.”</p> + +<p>“It’s hereditary, so he has explained to me,” I +answered. “It seems his family have always been thirsty.”</p> + +<p>“There is Apollinaris water,” replied Harris, “which, +I believe, with a little lemon squeezed into it, is practically harmless. +What I am thinking about is his figure. He will lose all his natural +elegance.”</p> + +<p>We talked the matter over, and, Providence aiding us, we fixed upon +a plan. For the ornamentation of the town a new statue had just +been cast. I forget of whom it was a statue. I only remember +that in the essentials it was the usual sort of street statue, representing +the usual sort of gentleman, with the usual stiff neck, riding the usual +sort of horse—the horse that always walks on its hind legs, keeping +its front paws for beating time. But in detail it possessed individuality. +Instead of the usual sword or baton, the man was holding, stretched +out in his hand, his own plumed hat; and the horse, instead of the usual +waterfall for a tail, possessed a somewhat attenuated appendage that +somehow appeared out of keeping with his ostentatious behaviour. +One felt that a horse with a tail like that would not have pranced so +much.</p> + +<p>It stood in a small square not far from the further end of the Karlsbrücke, +but it stood there only temporarily. Before deciding finally where +to fix it, the town authorities had resolved, very sensibly, to judge +by practical test where it would look best. Accordingly, they +had made three rough copies of the statue—mere wooden profiles, +things that would not bear looking at closely, but which, viewed from +a little distance, produced all the effect that was necessary. +One of these they had set up at the approach to the Franz-Josefsbrücke, +a second stood in the open space behind the theatre, and the third in +the centre of the Wenzelsplatz.</p> + +<p>“If George is not in the secret of this thing,” said +Harris—we were walking by ourselves for an hour, he having remained +behind in the hotel to write a letter to his aunt,—“if he +has not observed these statues, then by their aid we will make a better +and a thinner man of him, and that this very evening.”</p> + +<p>So during dinner we sounded him, judiciously; and finding him ignorant +of the matter, we took him out, and led him by side-streets to the place +where stood the real statue. George was for looking at it and +passing on, as is his way with statues, but we insisted on his pulling +up and viewing the thing conscientiously. We walked him round +that statue four times, and showed it to him from every possible point +of view. I think, on the whole, we rather bored him with the thing, +but our object was to impress it upon him. We told him the history +of the man who rode upon the horse, the name of the artist who had made +the statue, how much it weighed, how much it measured. We worked +that statue into his system. By the time we had done with him +he knew more about that statue, for the time being, than he knew about +anything else. We soaked him in that statue, and only let him +go at last on the condition that he would come again with us in the +morning, when we could all see it better, and for such purpose we saw +to it that he made a note in his pocket-book of the place where the +statue stood.</p> + +<p>Then we accompanied him to his favourite beer hall, and sat beside +him, telling him anecdotes of men who, unaccustomed to German beer, +and drinking too much of it, had gone mad and developed homicidal mania; +of men who had died young through drinking German beer; of lovers that +German beer had been the means of parting for ever from beautiful girls.</p> + +<p>At ten o’clock we started to walk back to the hotel. +It was a stormy-looking night, with heavy clouds drifting over a light +moon. Harris said:</p> + +<p>“We won’t go back the same way we came; we’ll walk +back by the river. It is lovely in the moonlight.”</p> + +<p>Harris told a sad history, as we walked, about a man he once knew, +who is now in a home for harmless imbeciles. He said he recalled +the story because it was on just such another night as this that he +was walking with that man the very last time he ever saw the poor fellow. +They were strolling down the Thames Embankment, Harris said, and the +man frightened him then by persisting that he saw the statue of the +Duke of Wellington at the corner of Westminster Bridge, when, as everybody +knows, it stands in Piccadilly.</p> + +<p>It was at this exact instant that we came in sight of the first of +these wooden copies. It occupied the centre of a small, railed-in +square a little above us on the opposite side of the way. George +suddenly stood still and leant against the wall of the quay.</p> + +<p>“What’s the matter?” I said; “feeling giddy?”</p> + +<p>He said: “I do, a little. Let’s rest here a moment.”</p> + +<p>He stood there with his eyes glued to the thing.</p> + +<p>He said, speaking huskily:</p> + +<p>“Talking of statues, what always strikes me is how very much +one statue is like another statue.”</p> + +<p>Harris said: “I cannot agree with you there—pictures, +if you like. Some pictures are very like other pictures, but with +a statue there is always something distinctive. Take that statue +we saw early in the evening,” continued Harris, “before +we went into the concert hall. It represented a man sitting on +a horse. In Prague you will see other statues of men on horses, +but nothing at all like that one.”</p> + +<p>“Yes they are,” said George; “they are all alike. +It’s always the same horse, and it’s always the same man. +They are all exactly alike. It’s idiotic nonsense to say +they are not.”</p> + +<p>He appeared to be angry with Harris.</p> + +<p>“What makes you think so?” I asked.</p> + +<p>“What makes me think so?” retorted George, now turning +upon me. “Why, look at that damned thing over there!”</p> + +<p>I said: “What damned thing?”</p> + +<p>“Why, that thing,” said George; “look at it! +There is the same horse with half a tail, standing on its hind legs; +the same man without his hat; the same—”</p> + +<p>Harris said: “You are talking now about the statue we saw in +the Ringplatz.”</p> + +<p>“No, I’m not,” replied George; “I’m +talking about the statue over there.”</p> + +<p>“What statue?” said Harris.</p> + +<p>George looked at Harris; but Harris is a man who might, with care, +have been a fair amateur actor. His face merely expressed friendly +sorrow, mingled with alarm. Next, George turned his gaze on me. +I endeavoured, so far as lay with me, to copy Harris’s expression, +adding to it on my own account a touch of reproof.</p> + +<p>“Will you have a cab?” I said as kindly as I could to +George. “I’ll run and get one.”</p> + +<p>“What the devil do I want with a cab?” he answered, ungraciously. +“Can’t you fellows understand a joke? It’s like +being out with a couple of confounded old women,” saying which, +he started off across the bridge, leaving us to follow.</p> + +<p>“I am so glad that was only a joke of yours,” said Harris, +on our overtaking him. “I knew a case of softening of the +brain that began—”</p> + +<p>“Oh, you’re a silly ass!” said George, cutting +him short; “you know everything.”</p> + +<p>He was really most unpleasant in his manner.</p> + +<p>We took him round by the riverside of the theatre. We told +him it was the shortest way, and, as a matter of fact, it was. +In the open space behind the theatre stood the second of these wooden +apparitions. George looked at it, and again stood still.</p> + +<p>“What’s the matter?” said Harris, kindly. +“You are not ill, are you?”</p> + +<p>“I don’t believe this is the shortest way,” said +George.</p> + +<p>“I assure you it is,” persisted Harris.</p> + +<p>“Well, I’m going the other,” said George; and he +turned and went, we, as before, following him.</p> + +<p>Along the Ferdinand Strasse Harris and I talked about private lunatic +asylums, which, Harris said, were not well managed in England. +He said a friend of his, a patient in a lunatic asylum—</p> + +<p>George said, interrupting: “You appear to have a large number +of friends in lunatic asylums.”</p> + +<p>He said it in a most insulting tone, as though to imply that that +is where one would look for the majority of Harris’s friends. +But Harris did not get angry; he merely replied, quite mildly:</p> + +<p>“Well, it really is extraordinary, when one comes to think +of it, how many of them have gone that way sooner or later. I +get quite nervous sometimes, now.”</p> + +<p>At the corner of the Wenzelsplatz, Harris, who was a few steps ahead +of us, paused.</p> + +<p>“It’s a fine street, isn’t it?” he said, +sticking his hands in his pockets, and gazing up at it admiringly.</p> + +<p>George and I followed suit. Two hundred yards away from us, +in its very centre, was the third of these ghostly statues. I +think it was the best of the three—the most like, the most deceptive. +It stood boldly outlined against the wild sky: the horse on its hind +legs, with its curiously attenuated tail; the man bareheaded, pointing +with his plumed hat to the now entirely visible moon.</p> + +<p>“I think, if you don’t mind,” said George—he +spoke with almost a pathetic ring in his voice, his aggressiveness had +completely fallen from him,—“that I will have that cab, +if there’s one handy.”</p> + +<p>“I thought you were looking queer,” said Harris, kindly. +“It’s your head, isn’t it?”</p> + +<p>“Perhaps it is,” answered George.</p> + +<p>“I have noticed it coming on,” said Harris; “but +I didn’t like to say anything to you. You fancy you see +things, don’t you?”</p> + +<p>“No, no; it isn’t that,” replied George, rather +quickly. “I don’t know what it is.”</p> + +<p>“I do,” said Harris, solemnly, “and I’ll +tell you. It’s this German beer that you are drinking. +I have known a case where a man—”</p> + +<p>“Don’t tell me about him just now,” said George. +“I dare say it’s true, but somehow I don’t feel I +want to hear about him.”</p> + +<p>“You are not used to it,” said Harris.</p> + +<p>“I shall give it up from to-night,” said George. +“I think you must be right; it doesn’t seem to agree with +me.”</p> + +<p>We took him home, and saw him to bed. He was very gentle and +quite grateful.</p> + +<p>One evening later on, after a long day’s ride, followed by +a most satisfactory dinner, we started him on a big cigar, and, removing +things from his reach, told him of this stratagem that for his good +we had planned.</p> + +<p>“How many copies of that statue did you say we saw?” +asked George, after we had finished.</p> + +<p>“Three,” replied Harris.</p> + +<p>“Only three?” said George. “Are you sure?”</p> + +<p>“Positive,” replied Harris. “Why?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, nothing!” answered George.</p> + +<p>But I don’t think he quite believed Harris.</p> + +<p>From Prague we travelled to Nuremberg, through Carlsbad. Good +Germans, when they die, go, they say, to Carlsbad, as good Americans +to Paris. This I doubt, seeing that it is a small place with no +convenience for a crowd. In Carlsbad, you rise at five, the fashionable +hour for promenade, when the band plays under the Colonnade, and the +Sprudel is filled with a packed throng over a mile long, being from +six to eight in the morning. Here you may hear more languages +spoken than the Tower of Babel could have echoed. Polish Jews +and Russian princes, Chinese mandarins and Turkish pashas, Norwegians +looking as if they had stepped out of Ibsen’s plays, women from +the Boulevards, Spanish grandees and English countesses, mountaineers +from Montenegro and millionaires from Chicago, you will find every dozen +yards. Every luxury in the world Carlsbad provides for its visitors, +with the one exception of pepper. That you cannot get within five +miles of the town for money; what you can get there for love is not +worth taking away. Pepper, to the liver brigade that forms four-fifths +of Carlsbad’s customers, is poison; and, prevention being better +than cure, it is carefully kept out of the neighbourhood. “Pepper +parties” are formed in Carlsbad to journey to some place without +the boundary, and there indulge in pepper orgies.</p> + +<p>Nuremberg, if one expects a town of mediaeval appearance, disappoints. +Quaint corners, picturesque glimpses, there are in plenty; but everywhere +they are surrounded and intruded upon by the modern, and even what is +ancient is not nearly so ancient as one thought it was. After +all, a town, like a woman, is only as old as it looks; and Nuremberg +is still a comfortable-looking dame, its age somewhat difficult to conceive +under its fresh paint and stucco in the blaze of the gas and the electric +light. Still, looking closely, you may see its wrinkled walls +and grey towers.</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>CHAPTER IX</h2> + +<p class="letter"> +Harris breaks the law—The helpful man: The dangers that beset +him—George sets forth upon a career of crime—Those to whom +Germany would come as a boon and a blessing—The English Sinner: +His disappointments—The German Sinner: His exceptional advantages—What +you may not do with your bed—An inexpensive vice—The German +dog: His simple goodness—The misbehaviour of the beetle—A +people that go the way they ought to go—The German small boy: +His love of legality—How to go astray with a perambulator—The +German student: His chastened wilfulness.</p> + +<p>All three of us, by some means or another, managed, between Nuremberg +and the Black Forest, to get into trouble.</p> + +<p>Harris led off at Stuttgart by insulting an official. Stuttgart +is a charming town, clean and bright, a smaller Dresden. It has +the additional attraction of containing little that one need to go out +of one’s way to see: a medium-sized picture gallery, a small museum +of antiquities, and half a palace, and you are through with the entire +thing and can enjoy yourself. Harris did not know it was an official +he was insulting. He took it for a fireman (it looked like a +fireman), and he called it a “dummer Esel.”</p> + +<p>In German you are not permitted to call an official a “silly +ass,” but undoubtedly this particular man was one. What +had happened was this: Harris in the Stadgarten, anxious to get out, +and seeing a gate open before him, had stepped over a wire into the +street. Harris maintains he never saw it, but undoubtedly there +was hanging to the wire a notice, “Durchgang Verboten!” +The man, who was standing near the gate stopped Harris, and pointed +out to him this notice. Harris thanked him, and passed on. +The man came after him, and explained that treatment of the matter in +such off-hand way could not be allowed; what was necessary to put the +business right was that Harris should step back over the wire into the +garden. Harris pointed out to the man that the notice said “going +through forbidden,” and that, therefore, by re-entering the garden +that way he would be infringing the law a second time. The man +saw this for himself, and suggested that to get over the difficulty +Harris should go back into the garden by the proper entrance, which +was round the corner, and afterwards immediately come out again by the +same gate. Then it was that Harris called the man a silly ass. +That delayed us a day, and cost Harris forty marks.</p> + +<p>I followed suit at Carlsruhe, by stealing a bicycle. I did +not mean to steal the bicycle; I was merely trying to be useful. +The train was on the point of starting when I noticed, as I thought, +Harris’s bicycle still in the goods van. No one was about +to help me. I jumped into the van and hauled it out, only just +in time. Wheeling it down the platform in triumph, I came across +Harris’s bicycle, standing against a wall behind some milk-cans. +The bicycle I had secured was not Harris’s, but some other man’s.</p> + +<p>It was an awkward situation. In England, I should have gone +to the stationmaster and explained my mistake. But in Germany +they are not content with your explaining a little matter of this sort +to one man: they take you round and get you to explain it to about half +a dozen; and if any one of the half dozen happens not to be handy, or +not to have time just then to listen to you, they have a habit of leaving +you over for the night to finish your explanation the next morning. +I thought I would just put the thing out of sight, and then, without +making any fuss or show, take a short walk. I found a wood shed, +which seemed just the very place, and was wheeling the bicycle into +it when, unfortunately, a red-hatted railway official, with the airs +of a retired field-marshal, caught sight of me and came up. He +said:</p> + +<p>“What are you doing with that bicycle?”</p> + +<p>I said: “I am going to put it in this wood shed out of the +way.” I tried to convey by my tone that I was performing +a kind and thoughtful action, for which the railway officials ought +to thank me; but he was unresponsive.</p> + +<p>“Is it your bicycle?” he said.</p> + +<p>“Well, not exactly,” I replied.</p> + +<p>“Whose is it?” he asked, quite sharply.</p> + +<p>“I can’t tell you,” I answered. “I +don’t know whose bicycle it is.”</p> + +<p>“Where did you get it from?” was his next question. +There was a suspiciousness about his tone that was almost insulting.</p> + +<p>“I got it,” I answered, with as much calm dignity as +at the moment I could assume, “out of the train. The fact is,” I continued, frankly, “I have made +a mistake.”</p> + +<p>He did not allow me time to finish. He merely said he thought +so too, and blew a whistle.</p> + +<p>Recollection of the subsequent proceedings is not, so far as I am +concerned, amusing. By a miracle of good luck—they say Providence +watches over certain of us—the incident happened in Carlsruhe, +where I possess a German friend, an official of some importance. +Upon what would have been my fate had the station not been at Carlsruhe, +or had my friend been from home, I do not care to dwell; as it was I +got off, as the saying is, by the skin of my teeth. I should like +to add that I left Carlsruhe without a stain upon my character, but +that would not be the truth. My going scot free is regarded in +police circles there to this day as a grave miscarriage of justice.</p> + +<p>But all lesser sin sinks into insignificance beside the lawlessness +of George. The bicycle incident had thrown us all into confusion, +with the result that we lost George altogether. It transpired +subsequently that he was waiting for us outside the police court; but +this at the time we did not know. We thought, maybe, he had gone +on to Baden by himself; and anxious to get away from Carlsruhe, and +not, perhaps, thinking out things too clearly, we jumped into the next +train that came up and proceeded thither. When George, tired of +waiting, returned to the station, he found us gone and he found his +luggage gone. Harris had his ticket; I was acting as banker to +the party, so that he had in his pocket only some small change. +Excusing himself upon these grounds, he thereupon commenced deliberately +a career of crime that, reading it later, as set forth baldly in the +official summons, made the hair of Harris and myself almost to stand +on end.</p> + +<p>German travelling, it may be explained, is somewhat complicated. +You buy a ticket at the station you start from for the place you want +to go to. You might think this would enable you to get there, +but it does not. When your train comes up, you attempt to swarm +into it; but the guard magnificently waves you away. Where are +your credentials? You show him your ticket. He explains +to you that by itself that is of no service whatever; you have only +taken the first step towards travelling; you must go back to the booking-office +and get in addition what is called a “schnellzug ticket.” +With this you return, thinking your troubles over. You are allowed +to get in, so far so good. But you must not sit down anywhere, +and you must not stand still, and you must not wander about. You +must take another ticket, this time what is called a “platz ticket,” +which entitles you to a place for a certain distance.</p> + +<p>What a man could do who persisted in taking nothing but the one ticket, +I have often wondered. Would he be entitled to run behind the +train on the six-foot way? Or could he stick a label on himself +and get into the goods van? Again, what could be done with the +man who, having taken his schnellzug ticket, obstinately refused, or +had not the money to take a platz ticket: would they let him lie in +the umbrella rack, or allow him to hang himself out of the window?</p> + +<p>To return to George, he had just sufficient money to take a third-class +slow train ticket to Baden, and that was all. To avoid the inquisitiveness +of the guard, he waited till the train was moving, and then jumped in.</p> + +<p>That was his first sin:</p> + +<p>(a) Entering a train in motion;</p> + +<p>(b) After being warned not to do so by an official.</p> + +<p>Second sin:</p> + +<p>(a) Travelling in train of superior class to that for which +ticket was held.</p> + +<p>(b) Refusing to pay difference when demanded by an official. +(George says he did not “refuse”; he simply told the man +he had not got it.)</p> + +<p>Third sin:</p> + +<p>(a) Travelling in carriage of superior class to that for which +ticket was held.</p> + +<p>(b) Refusing to pay difference when demanded by an official. +(Again George disputes the accuracy of the report. He turned his +pockets out, and offered the man all he had, which was about eightpence +in German money. He offered to go into a third class, but there +was no third class. He offered to go into the goods van, but they +would not hear of it.)</p> + +<p>Fourth sin:</p> + +<p>(a) Occupying seat, and not paying for same.</p> + +<p>(b) Loitering about corridor. (As they would not let +him sit down without paying, and as he could not pay, it was difficult +to see what else he could do.)</p> + +<p>But explanations are held as no excuse in Germany; and his journey +from Carlsruhe to Baden was one of the most expensive perhaps on record.</p> + +<p>Reflecting upon the case and frequency with which one gets into trouble +here in Germany, one is led to the conclusion that this country would +come as a boon and a blessing to the average young Englishman. +To the medical student, to the eater of dinners at the Temple, to the +subaltern on leave, life in London is a wearisome proceeding. +The healthy Briton takes his pleasure lawlessly, or it is no pleasure +to him. Nothing that he may do affords to him any genuine satisfaction. +To be in trouble of some sort is his only idea of bliss. Now, +England affords him small opportunity in this respect; to get himself +into a scrape requires a good deal of persistence on the part of the +young Englishman.</p> + +<p>I spoke on this subject one day with our senior churchwarden. +It was the morning of the 10th of November, and we were both of us glancing, +somewhat anxiously, through the police reports. The usual batch +of young men had been summoned for creating the usual disturbance the +night before at the Criterion. My friend the churchwarden has +boys of his own, and a nephew of mine, upon whom I am keeping a fatherly +eye, is by a fond mother supposed to be in London for the sole purpose +of studying engineering. No names we knew happened, by fortunate +chance, to be in the list of those detained in custody, and, relieved, +we fell to moralising upon the folly and depravity of youth.</p> + +<p>“It is very remarkable,” said my friend the churchwarden, +“how the Criterion retains its position in this respect. +It was just so when I was young; the evening always wound up with a +row at the Criterion.”</p> + +<p>“So meaningless,” I remarked.</p> + +<p>“So monotonous,” he replied. “You have no +idea,” he continued, a dreamy expression stealing over his furrowed +face, “how unutterably tired one can become of the walk from Piccadilly +Circus to the Vine Street Police Court. Yet, what else was there +for us to do? Simply nothing. Sometimes we would put out +a street lamp, and a man would come round and light it again. +If one insulted a policeman, he simply took no notice. He did +not even know he was being insulted; or, if he did, he seemed not to +care. You could fight a Covent Garden porter, if you fancied yourself +at that sort of thing. Generally speaking, the porter got the +best of it; and when he did it cost you five shillings, and when he +did not the price was half a sovereign. I could never see much +excitement in that particular sport. I tried driving a hansom +cab once. That has always been regarded as the acme of modern +Tom and Jerryism. I stole it late one night from outside a public-house +in Dean Street, and the first thing that happened to me was that I was +hailed in Golden Square by an old lady surrounded by three children, +two of them crying and the third one half asleep. Before I could +get away she had shot the brats into the cab, taken my number, paid +me, so she said, a shilling over the legal fare, and directed me to +an address a little beyond what she called North Kensington. As +a matter of fact, the place turned out to be the other side of Willesden. +The horse was tired, and the journey took us well over two hours. +It was the slowest lark I ever remember being concerned in. I +tried once or twice to persuade the children to let me take them back +to the old lady: but every time I opened the trap-door to speak to them +the youngest one, a boy, started screaming; and when I offered other +drivers to transfer the job to them, most of them replied in the words +of a song popular about that period: ‘Oh, George, don’t +you think you’re going just a bit too far?’ One man +offered to take home to my wife any last message I might be thinking +of, while another promised to organise a party to come and dig me out +in the spring. When I mounted the dickey I had imagined myself +driving a peppery old colonel to some lonesome and cabless region, half +a dozen miles from where he wanted to go, and there leaving him upon +the kerbstone to swear. About that there might have been good +sport or there might not, according to circumstances and the colonel. +The idea of a trip to an outlying suburb in charge of a nursery full +of helpless infants had never occurred to me. No, London,” +concluded my friend the churchwarden with a sigh, “affords but +limited opportunity to the lover of the illegal.”</p> + +<p>Now, in Germany, on the other hand, trouble is to be had for the +asking. There are many things in Germany that you must not do +that are quite easy to do. To any young Englishman yearning to +get himself into a scrape, and finding himself hampered in his own country, +I would advise a single ticket to Germany; a return, lasting as it does +only a month, might prove a waste.</p> + +<p>In the Police Guide of the Fatherland he will find set forth a list +of the things the doing of which will bring to him interest and excitement. +In Germany you must not hang your bed out of window. He might +begin with that. By waving his bed out of window he could get +into trouble before he had his breakfast. At home he might hang +himself out of window, and nobody would mind much, provided he did not +obstruct anybody’s ancient lights or break away and injure any +passer underneath.</p> + +<p>In Germany you must not wear fancy dress in the streets. A +Highlander of my acquaintance who came to pass the winter in Dresden +spent the first few days of his residence there in arguing this question +with the Saxon Government. They asked him what he was doing in +those clothes. He was not an amiable man. He answered, he +was wearing them. They asked him why he was wearing them. +He replied, to keep himself warm. They told him frankly that they +did not believe him, and sent him back to his lodgings in a closed landau. +The personal testimony of the English Minister was necessary to assure +the authorities that the Highland garb was the customary dress of many +respectable, law-abiding British subjects. They accepted the statement, +as diplomatically bound, but retain their private opinion to this day. +The English tourist they have grown accustomed to; but a Leicestershire +gentleman, invited to hunt with some German officers, on appearing outside +his hotel, was promptly marched off, horse and all, to explain his frivolity +at the police court.</p> + +<p>Another thing you must not do in the streets of German towns is to +feed horses, mules, or donkeys, whether your own or those belonging +to other people. If a passion seizes you to feed somebody else’s +horse, you must make an appointment with the animal, and the meal must +take place in some properly authorised place. You must not break +glass or china in the street, nor, in fact, in any public resort whatever; +and if you do, you must pick up all the pieces. What you are to +do with the pieces when you have gathered them together I cannot say. +The only thing I know for certain is that you are not permitted to throw +them anywhere, to leave them anywhere, or apparently to part with them +in any way whatever. Presumably, you are expected to carry them +about with you until you die, and then be buried with them; or, maybe, +you are allowed to swallow them.</p> + +<p>In German streets you must not shoot with a crossbow. The German +law-maker does not content himself with the misdeeds of the average +man—the crime one feels one wants to do, but must not: he worries +himself imagining all the things a wandering maniac might do. +In Germany there is no law against a man standing on his head in the +middle of the road; the idea has not occurred to them. One of +these days a German statesman, visiting a circus and seeing acrobats, +will reflect upon this omission. Then he will straightway set +to work and frame a clause forbidding people from standing on their +heads in the middle of the road, and fixing a fine. This is the +charm of German law: misdemeanour in Germany has its fixed price. +You are not kept awake all night, as in England, wondering whether you +will get off with a caution, be fined forty shillings, or, catching +the magistrate in an unhappy moment for yourself, get seven days. +You know exactly what your fun is going to cost you. You can spread +out your money on the table, open your Police Guide, and plan out your +holiday to a fifty pfennig piece. For a really cheap evening, +I would recommend walking on the wrong side of the pavement after being +cautioned not to do so. I calculate that by choosing your district +and keeping to the quiet side streets you could walk for a whole evening +on the wrong side of the pavement at a cost of little over three marks.</p> + +<p>In German towns you must not ramble about after dark “in droves.” +I am not quite sure how many constitute a “drove,” and no +official to whom I have spoken on this subject has felt himself competent +to fix the exact number. I once put it to a German friend who +was starting for the theatre with his wife, his mother-in-law, five +children of his own, his sister and her <i>fiancé</i>, and two +nieces, if he did not think he was running a risk under this by-law. +He did not take my suggestion as a joke. He cast an eye over the +group.</p> + +<p>“Oh, I don’t think so,” he said; “you see, +we are all one family.”</p> + +<p>“The paragraph says nothing about its being a family drove +or not,” I replied; “it simply says ‘drove.’ +I do not mean it in any uncomplimentary sense, but, speaking etymologically, +I am inclined personally to regard your collection as a ‘drove.’ +Whether the police will take the same view or not remains to be seen. +I am merely warning you.”</p> + +<p>My friend himself was inclined to pooh-pooh my fears; but his wife +thinking it better not to run any risk of having the party broken up +by the police at the very beginning of the evening, they divided, arranging +to come together again in the theatre lobby.</p> + +<p>Another passion you must restrain in Germany is that prompting you +to throw things out of window. Cats are no excuse. During +the first week of my residence in Germany I was awakened incessantly +by cats. One night I got mad. I collected a small arsenal—two +or three pieces of coal, a few hard pears, a couple of candle ends, +an odd egg I found on the kitchen table, an empty soda-water bottle, +and a few articles of that sort,—and, opening the window, bombarded +the spot from where the noise appeared to come. I do not suppose +I hit anything; I never knew a man who did hit a cat, even when he could +see it, except, maybe, by accident when aiming at something else. +I have known crack shots, winners of Queen’s prizes—those +sort of men,—shoot with shot-guns at cats fifty yards away, and +never hit a hair. I have often thought that, instead of bull’s-eyes, +running deer, and that rubbish, the really superior marksman would be +he who could boast that he had shot the cat.</p> + +<p>But, anyhow, they moved off; maybe the egg annoyed them. I +had noticed when I picked it up that it did not look a good egg; and +I went back to bed again, thinking the incident closed. Ten minutes +afterwards there came a violent ringing of the electric bell. +I tried to ignore it, but it was too persistent, and, putting on my +dressing gown, I went down to the gate. A policeman was standing +there. He had all the things I had been throwing out of the window +in a little heap in front of him, all except the egg. He had evidently +been collecting them. He said:</p> + +<p>“Are these things yours?”</p> + +<p>I said: “They were mine, but personally I have done with them. +Anybody can have them—you can have them.”</p> + +<p>He ignored my offer. He said:</p> + +<p>“You threw these things out of window.”</p> + +<p>“You are right,” I admitted; “I did.”</p> + +<p>“Why did you throw them out of window?” he asked. +A German policeman has his code of questions arranged for him; he never +varies them, and he never omits one.</p> + +<p>“I threw them out of the window at some cats,” I answered.</p> + +<p>“What cats?” he asked.</p> + +<p>It was the sort of question a German policeman would ask. I +replied with as much sarcasm as I could put into my accent that I was +ashamed to say I could not tell him what cats. I explained that, +personally, they were strangers to me; but I offered, if the police +would call all the cats in the district together, to come round and +see if I could recognise them by their yaul.</p> + +<p>The German policeman does not understand a joke, which is perhaps +on the whole just as well, for I believe there is a heavy fine for joking +with any German uniform; they call it “treating an official with +contumely.” He merely replied that it was not the duty of +the police to help me recognise the cats; their duty was merely to fine +me for throwing things out of window.</p> + +<p>I asked what a man was supposed to do in Germany when woke up night +after night by cats, and he explained that I could lodge an information +against the owner of the cat, when the police would proceed to caution +him, and, if necessary, order the cat to be destroyed. Who was +going to destroy the cat, and what the cat would be doing during the +process, he did not explain.</p> + +<p>I asked him how he proposed I should discover the owner of the cat. +He thought for a while, and then suggested that I might follow it home. +I did not feel inclined to argue with him any more after that; I should +only have said things that would have made the matter worse. As +it was, that night’s sport cost me twelve marks; and not a single +one of the four German officials who interviewed me on the subject could +see anything ridiculous in the proceedings from beginning to end.</p> + +<p>But in Germany most human faults and follies sink into comparative +insignificance beside the enormity of walking on the grass. Nowhere, +and under no circumstances, may you at any time in Germany walk on the +grass. Grass in Germany is quite a fetish. To put your foot +on German grass would be as great a sacrilege as to dance a hornpipe +on a Mohammedan’s praying-mat. The very dogs respect German +grass; no German dog would dream of putting a paw on it. If you +see a dog scampering across the grass in Germany, you may know for certain +that it is the dog of some unholy foreigner. In England, when +we want to keep dogs out of places, we put up wire netting, six feet +high, supported by buttresses, and defended on the top by spikes. +In Germany, they put a notice-board in the middle of the place, “Hunden +verboten,” and a dog that has German blood in its veins looks +at that notice-board and walks away. In a German park I have seen +a gardener step gingerly with felt boots on to grass-plot, and removing +therefrom a beetle, place it gravely but firmly on the gravel; which +done, he stood sternly watching the beetle, to see that it did not try +to get back on the grass; and the beetle, looking utterly ashamed of +itself, walked hurriedly down the gutter, and turned up the path marked +“Ausgang.”</p> + +<p>In German parks separate roads are devoted to the different orders +of the community, and no one person, at peril of liberty and fortune, +may go upon another person’s road. There are special paths +for “wheel-riders” and special paths for “foot-goers,” +avenues for “horse-riders,” roads for people in light vehicles, +and roads for people in heavy vehicles; ways for children and for “alone +ladies.” That no particular route has yet been set aside +for bald-headed men or “new women” has always struck me +as an omission.</p> + +<p>In the Grosse Garten in Dresden I once came across an old lady, standing, +helpless and bewildered, in the centre of seven tracks. Each was +guarded by a threatening notice, warning everybody off it but the person +for whom it was intended.</p> + +<p>“I am sorry to trouble you,” said the old lady, on learning +I could speak English and read German, “but would you mind telling +me what I am and where I have to go?”</p> + +<p>I inspected her carefully. I came to the conclusion that she +was a “grown-up” and a “foot-goer,” and pointed +out her path. She looked at it, and seemed disappointed.</p> + +<p>“But I don’t want to go down there,” she said; +“mayn’t I go this way?”</p> + +<p>“Great heavens, no, madam!” I replied. “That +path is reserved for children.”</p> + +<p>“But I wouldn’t do them any harm,” said the old +lady, with a smile. She did not look the sort of old lady who +would have done them any harm.</p> + +<p>“Madam,” I replied, “if it rested with me, I would +trust you down that path, though my own first-born were at the other +end; but I can only inform you of the laws of this country. For +you, a full-grown woman, to venture down that path is to go to certain +fine, if not imprisonment. There is your path, marked plainly—<i>Nur +für Fussgänger</i>, and if you will follow my advice, you +will hasten down it; you are not allowed to stand here and hesitate.”</p> + +<p>“It doesn’t lead a bit in the direction I want to go,” +said the old lady.</p> + +<p>“It leads in the direction you <i>ought</i> to want to go,” +I replied, and we parted.</p> + +<p>In the German parks there are special seats labelled, “Only +for grown-ups” (<i>Nur für Erwachsene</i>), and the German +small boy, anxious to sit down, and reading that notice, passes by, +and hunts for a seat on which children are permitted to rest; and there +he seats himself, careful not to touch the woodwork with his muddy boots. +Imagine a seat in Regent’s or St. James’s Park labelled +“Only for grown-ups!” Every child for five miles round +would be trying to get on that seat, and hauling other children off +who were on. As for any “grown-up,” he would never +be able to get within half a mile of that seat for the crowd. +The German small boy, who has accidentally sat down on such without +noticing, rises with a start when his error is pointed out to him, and +goes away with down-cast head, blushing to the roots of his hair with +shame and regret.</p> + +<p>Not that the German child is neglected by a paternal Government. +In German parks and public gardens special places (<i>Spielplätze</i>) +are provided for him, each one supplied with a heap of sand. There +he can play to his heart’s content at making mud pies and building +sand castles. To the German child a pie made of any other mud +than this would appear an immoral pie. It would give to him no +satisfaction: his soul would revolt against it.</p> + +<p>“That pie,” he would say to himself, “was not, +as it should have been, made of Government mud specially set apart for +the purpose; it was nor manufactured in the place planned and maintained +by the Government for the making of mud pies. It can bring no +real blessing with it; it is a lawless pie.” And until his +father had paid the proper fine, and he had received his proper licking, +his conscience would continue to trouble him.</p> + +<p>Another excellent piece of material for obtaining excitement in Germany +is the simple domestic perambulator. What you may do with a “kinder-wagen,” +as it is called, and what you may not, covers pages of German law; after +the reading of which, you conclude that the man who can push a perambulator +through a German town without breaking the law was meant for a diplomatist. +You must not loiter with a perambulator, and you must not go too fast. +You must not get in anybody’s way with a perambulator, and if +anybody gets in your way you must get out of their way. If you +want to stop with a perambulator, you must go to a place specially appointed +where perambulators may stop; and when you get there you <i>must</i> +stop. You must not cross the road with a perambulator; if you +and the baby happen to live on the other side, that is your fault. +You must not leave your perambulator anywhere, and only in certain places +can you take it with you. I should say that in Germany you could +go out with a perambulator and get into enough trouble in half an hour +to last you for a month. Any young Englishman anxious for a row +with the police could not do better than come over to Germany and bring +his perambulator with him.</p> + +<p>In Germany you must not leave your front door unlocked after ten +o’clock at night, and you must not play the piano in your own +house after eleven. In England I have never felt I wanted to play +the piano myself, or to hear anyone else play it, after eleven o’clock +at night; but that is a very different thing to being told that you +must not play it. Here, in Germany, I never feel that I really +care for the piano until eleven o’clock, then I could sit and +listen to the “Maiden’s Prayer,” or the Overture to +“Zampa,” with pleasure. To the law-loving German, +on the other hand, music after eleven o’clock at night ceases +to be music; it becomes sin, and as such gives him no satisfaction.</p> + +<p>The only individual throughout Germany who ever dreams of taking +liberties with the law is the German student, and he only to a certain +well-defined point. By custom, certain privileges are permitted +to him, but even these are strictly limited and clearly understood. +For instance, the German student may get drunk and fall asleep in the +gutter with no other penalty than that of having the next morning to +tip the policeman who has found him and brought him home. But +for this purpose he must choose the gutters of side-streets. The +German student, conscious of the rapid approach of oblivion, uses all +his remaining energy to get round the corner, where he may collapse +without anxiety. In certain districts he may ring bells. +The rent of flats in these localities is lower than in other quarters +of the town; while the difficulty is further met by each family preparing +for itself a secret code of bell-ringing by means of which it is known +whether the summons is genuine or not. When visiting such a household +late at night it is well to be acquainted with this code, or you may, +if persistent, get a bucket of water thrown over you.</p> + +<p>Also the German student is allowed to put out lights at night, but +there is a prejudice against his putting out too many. The larky +German student generally keeps count, contenting himself with half a +dozen lights per night. Likewise, he may shout and sing as he +walks home, up till half-past two; and at certain restaurants it is +permitted to him to put his arm round the Fraulein’s waist. +To prevent any suggestion of unseemliness, the waitresses at restaurants +frequented by students are always carefully selected from among a staid +and elderly classy of women, by reason of which the German student can +enjoy the delights of flirtation without fear and without reproach to +anyone.</p> + +<p>They are a law-abiding people, the Germans.</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>CHAPTER X</h2> + +<p class="letter"> +Baden from the visitor’s point of view—Beauty of the +early morning, as viewed from the preceding afternoon—Distance, +as measured by the compass—Ditto, as measured by the leg—George +in account with his conscience—A lazy machine—Bicycling, +according to the poster: its restfulness—The poster cyclist: its +costume; its method—The griffin as a household pet—A dog +with proper self-respect—The horse that was abused.</p> + +<p>From Baden, about which it need only be said that it is a pleasure +resort singularly like other pleasure resorts of the same description, +we started bicycling in earnest. We planned a ten days’ +tour, which, while completing the Black Forest, should include a spin +down the Donau-Thal, which for the twenty miles from Tuttlingen to Sigmaringen +is, perhaps, the finest valley in Germany; the Danube stream here winding +its narrow way past old-world unspoilt villages; past ancient monasteries, +nestling in green pastures, where still the bare-footed and bare-headed +friar, his rope girdle tight about his loins, shepherds, with crook +in hand, his sheep upon the hill sides; through rocky woods; between +sheer walls of cliff, whose every towering crag stands crowned with +ruined fortress, church, or castle; together with a blick at the Vosges +mountains, where half the population is bitterly pained if you speak +to them in French, the other half being insulted when you address them +in German, and the whole indignantly contemptuous at the first sound +of English; a state of things that renders conversation with the stranger +somewhat nervous work.</p> + +<p>We did not succeed in carrying out our programme in its entirety, +for the reason that human performance lags ever behind human intention. +It is easy to say and believe at three o’clock in the afternoon +that: “We will rise at five, breakfast lightly at half-past, and +start away at six.”</p> + +<p>“Then we shall be well on our way before the heat of the day +sets in,” remarks one.</p> + +<p>“This time of the year, the early morning is really the best +part of the day. Don’t you think so?” adds another.</p> + +<p>“Oh, undoubtedly.”</p> + +<p>“So cool and fresh.”</p> + +<p>“And the half-lights are so exquisite.”</p> + +<p>The first morning one maintains one’s vows. The party +assembles at half-past five. It is very silent; individually, +somewhat snappy; inclined to grumble with its food, also with most other +things; the atmosphere charged with compressed irritability seeking +its vent. In the evening the Tempter’s voice is heard:</p> + +<p>“I think if we got off by half-past six, sharp, that would +be time enough?”</p> + +<p>The voice of Virtue protests, faintly: “It will be breaking +our resolution.”</p> + +<p>The Tempter replies: “Resolutions were made for man, not man +for resolutions.” The devil can paraphrase Scripture for +his own purpose. “Besides, it is disturbing the whole hotel; +think of the poor servants.”</p> + +<p>The voice of Virtue continues, but even feebler: “But everybody +gets up early in these parts.”</p> + +<p>“They would not if they were not obliged to, poor things! +Say breakfast at half-past six, punctual; that will be disturbing nobody.”</p> + +<p>Thus Sin masquerades under the guise of Good, and one sleeps till +six, explaining to one’s conscience, who, however, doesn’t +believe it, that one does this because of unselfish consideration for +others. I have known such consideration extend until seven of +the clock.</p> + +<p>Likewise, distance measured with a pair of compasses is not precisely +the same as when measured by the leg.</p> + +<p>“Ten miles an hour for seven hours, seventy miles. A +nice easy day’s work.”</p> + +<p>“There are some stiff hills to climb?”</p> + +<p>“The other side to come down. Say, eight miles an hour, +and call it sixty miles. Gott in Himmel! if we can’t average +eight miles an hour, we had better go in bath-chairs.” It +does seem somewhat impossible to do less, on paper.</p> + +<p>But at four o’clock in the afternoon the voice of Duty rings +less trumpet-toned:</p> + +<p>“Well, I suppose we ought to be getting on.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, there’s no hurry! don’t fuss. Lovely +view from here, isn’t it?”</p> + +<p>“Very. Don’t forget we are twenty-five miles from +St. Blasien.”</p> + +<p>“How far?”</p> + +<p>“Twenty-five miles, a little over if anything.”</p> + +<p>“Do you mean to say we have only come thirty-five miles?”</p> + +<p>“That’s all.”</p> + +<p>“Nonsense. I don’t believe that map of yours.”</p> + +<p>“It is impossible, you know. We have been riding steadily +ever since the first thing this morning.”</p> + +<p>“No, we haven’t. We didn’t get away till +eight, to begin with.”</p> + +<p>“Quarter to eight.”</p> + +<p>“Well, quarter to eight; and every half-dozen miles we have +stopped.”</p> + +<p>“We have only stopped to look at the view. It’s +no good coming to see a country, and then not seeing it.”</p> + +<p>“And we have had to pull up some stiff hills.”</p> + +<p>“Besides, it has been an exceptionally hot day to-day.”</p> + +<p>“Well, don’t forget St. Blasien is twenty-five miles +off, that’s all.”</p> + +<p>“Any more hills?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, two; up and down.”</p> + +<p>“I thought you said it was downhill into St. Blasien?”</p> + +<p>“So it is for the last ten miles. We are twenty-five +miles from St. Blasien here.”</p> + +<p>“Isn’t there anywhere between here and St. Blasien? +What’s that little place there on the lake?”</p> + +<p>“It isn’t St. Blasien, or anywhere near it. There’s +a danger in beginning that sort of thing.”</p> + +<p>“There’s a danger in overworking oneself. One should +study moderation in all things. Pretty little place, that Titisee, +according to the map; looks as if there would be good air there.”</p> + +<p>“All right, I’m agreeable. It was you fellows who +suggested our making for St. Blasien.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, I’m not so keen on St. Blasien! poky little place, +down in a valley. This Titisee, I should say, was ever so much +nicer.”</p> + +<p>“Quite near, isn’t it?”</p> + +<p>“Five miles.”</p> + +<p>General chorus: “We’ll stop at Titisee.”</p> + +<p>George made discovery of this difference between theory and practice +on the very first day of our ride.</p> + +<p>“I thought,” said George—he was riding the single, +Harris and I being a little ahead on the tandem—“that the +idea was to train up the hills and ride down them.”</p> + +<p>“So it is,” answered Harris, “as a general rule. +But the trains don’t go up <i>every</i> hill in the Black Forest.”</p> + +<p>“Somehow, I felt a suspicion that they wouldn’t,” +growled George; and for awhile silence reigned.</p> + +<p>“Besides,” remarked Harris, who had evidently been ruminating +the subject, “you would not wish to have nothing but downhill, +surely. It would not be playing the game. One must take +a little rough with one’s smooth.”</p> + +<p>Again there returned silence, broken after awhile by George, this +time.</p> + +<p>“Don’t you two fellows over-exert yourselves merely on +my account,” said George.</p> + +<p>“How do you mean?” asked Harris.</p> + +<p>“I mean,” answered George, “that where a train +does happen to be going up these hills, don’t you put aside the +idea of taking it for fear of outraging my finer feelings. Personally, +I am prepared to go up all these hills in a railway train, even if it’s +not playing the game. I’ll square the thing with my conscience; +I’ve been up at seven every day for a week now, and I calculate +it owes me a bit. Don’t you consider me in the matter at +all.”</p> + +<p>We promised to bear this in mind, and again the ride continued in +dogged dumbness, until it was again broken by George.</p> + +<p>“What bicycle did you say this was of yours?” asked George.</p> + +<p>Harris told him. I forget of what particular manufacture it +happened to be; it is immaterial.</p> + +<p>“Are you sure?” persisted George.</p> + +<p>“Of course I am sure,” answered Harris. “Why, +what’s the matter with it?”</p> + +<p>“Well, it doesn’t come up to the poster,” said +George, “that’s all.”</p> + +<p>“What poster?” asked Harris.</p> + +<p>“The poster advertising this particular brand of cycle,” +explained George. “I was looking at one on a hoarding in +Sloane Street only a day or two before we started. A man was riding +this make of machine, a man with a banner in his hand: he wasn’t +doing any work, that was clear as daylight; he was just sitting on the +thing and drinking in the air. The cycle was going of its own +accord, and going well. This thing of yours leaves all the work +to me. It is a lazy brute of a machine; if you don’t shove, +it simply does nothing: I should complain about it, if I were you.”</p> + +<p>When one comes to think of it, few bicycles do realise the poster. +On only one poster that I can recollect have I seen the rider represented +as doing any work. But then this man was being pursued by a bull. +In ordinary cases the object of the artist is to convince the hesitating +neophyte that the sport of bicycling consists in sitting on a luxurious +saddle, and being moved rapidly in the direction you wish to go by unseen +heavenly powers.</p> + +<p>Generally speaking, the rider is a lady, and then one feels that, +for perfect bodily rest combined with entire freedom from mental anxiety, +slumber upon a water-bed cannot compare with bicycle-riding upon a hilly +road. No fairy travelling on a summer cloud could take things +more easily than does the bicycle girl, according to the poster. +Her costume for cycling in hot weather is ideal. Old-fashioned +landladies might refuse her lunch, it is true; and a narrowminded police +force might desire to secure her, and wrap her in a rug preliminary +to summonsing her. But such she heeds not. Uphill and downhill, +through traffic that might tax the ingenuity of a cat, over road surfaces +calculated to break the average steam roller she passes, a vision of +idle loveliness; her fair hair streaming to the wind, her sylph-like +form poised airily, one foot upon the saddle, the other resting lightly +upon the lamp. Sometimes she condescends to sit down on the saddle; +then she puts her feet on the rests, lights a cigarette, and waves above +her head a Chinese lantern.</p> + +<p>Less often, it is a mere male thing that rides the machine. +He is not so accomplished an acrobat as is the lady; but simple tricks, +such as standing on the saddle and waving flags, drinking beer or beef-tea +while riding, he can and does perform. Something, one supposes, +he must do to occupy his mind: sitting still hour after hour on this +machine, having no work to do, nothing to think about, must pall upon +any man of active temperament. Thus it is that we see him rising +on his pedals as he nears the top of some high hill to apostrophise +the sun, or address poetry to the surrounding scenery.</p> + +<p>Occasionally the poster pictures a pair of cyclists; and then one +grasps the fact how much superior for purposes of flirtation is the +modern bicycle to the old-fashioned parlour or the played-out garden +gate. He and she mount their bicycles, being careful, of course, +that such are of the right make. After that they have nothing +to think about but the old sweet tale. Down shady lanes, through +busy towns on market days, merrily roll the wheels of the “Bermondsey +Company’s Bottom Bracket Britain’s Best,” or of the +“Camberwell Company’s Jointless Eureka.” They +need no pedalling; they require no guiding. Give them their heads, +and tell them what time you want to get home, and that is all they ask. +While Edwin leans from his saddle to whisper the dear old nothings in +Angelina’s ear, while Angelina’s face, to hide its blushes, +is turned towards the horizon at the back, the magic bicycles pursue +their even course.</p> + +<p>And the sun is always shining and the roads are always dry. +No stern parent rides behind, no interfering aunt beside, no demon small +boy brother is peeping round the corner, there never comes a skid. +Ah me! Why were there no “Britain’s Best” nor +“Camberwell Eurekas” to be hired when <i>we</i> were young?</p> + +<p>Or maybe the “Britain’s Best” or the “Camberwell +Eureka” stands leaning against a gate; maybe it is tired. +It has worked hard all the afternoon, carrying these young people. +Mercifully minded, they have dismounted, to give the machine a rest. +They sit upon the grass beneath the shade of graceful boughs; it is +long and dry grass. A stream flows by their feet. All is +rest and peace.</p> + +<p>That is ever the idea the cycle poster artist sets himself to convey—rest +and peace.</p> + +<p>But I am wrong in saying that no cyclist, according to the poster, +ever works. Now I come to reflect, I have seen posters representing +gentlemen on cycles working very hard—over-working themselves, +one might almost say. They are thin and haggard with the toil, +the perspiration stands upon their brow in beads; you feel that if there +is another hill beyond the poster they must either get off or die. +But this is the result of their own folly. This happens because +they will persist in riding a machine of an inferior make. Were +they riding a “Putney Popular” or “Battersea Bounder,” +such as the sensible young man in the centre of the poster rides, then +all this unnecessary labour would be saved to them. Then all required +of them would be, as in gratitude bound, to look happy; perhaps, occasionally +to back-pedal a little when the machine in its youthful buoyancy loses +its head for a moment and dashes on too swiftly.</p> + +<p>You tired young men, sitting dejectedly on milestones, too spent +to heed the steady rain that soaks you through; you weary maidens, with +the straight, damp hair, anxious about the time, longing to swear, not +knowing how; you stout bald men, vanishing visibly as you pant and grunt +along the endless road; you purple, dejected matrons, plying with pain +the slow unwilling wheel; why did you not see to it that you bought +a “Britain’s Best” or a “Camberwell Eureka”? +Why are these bicycles of inferior make so prevalent throughout the +land?</p> + +<p>Or is it with bicycling as with all other things: does Life at no +point realise the Poster?</p> + +<p>The one thing in Germany that never fails to charm and fascinate +me is the German dog. In England one grows tired of the old breeds, +one knows them all so well: the mastiff, the plum-pudding dog, the terrier +(black, white or rough-haired, as the case may be, but always quarrelsome), +the collie, the bulldog; never anything new. Now in Germany you +get variety. You come across dogs the like of which you have never +seen before: that until you hear them bark you do not know are dogs. +It is all so fresh, so interesting. George stopped a dog in Sigmaringen +and drew our attention to it. It suggested a cross between a codfish +and a poodle. I would not like to be positive it was <i>not</i> +a cross between a codfish and a poodle. Harris tried to photograph +it, but it ran up a fence and disappeared through some bushes.</p> + +<p>I do not know what the German breeder’s idea is; at present +he retains his secret. George suggests he is aiming at a griffin. +There is much to bear out this theory, and indeed in one or two cases +I have come across success on these lines would seem to have been almost +achieved. Yet I cannot bring myself to believe that such are anything +more than mere accidents. The German is practical, and I fail +to see the object of a griffin. If mere quaintness of design be +desired, is there not already the Dachshund! What more is needed? +Besides, about a house, a griffin would be so inconvenient: people would +be continually treading on its tail. My own idea is that what +the Germans are trying for is a mermaid, which they will then train +to catch fish.</p> + +<p>For your German does not encourage laziness in any living thing. +He likes to see his dogs work, and the German dog loves work; of that +there can be no doubt. The life of the English dog must be a misery +to him. Imagine a strong, active, and intelligent being, of exceptionally +energetic temperament, condemned to spend twenty-four hours a day in +absolute idleness! How would you like it yourself? No wonder +he feels misunderstood, yearns for the unattainable, and gets himself +into trouble generally.</p> + +<p>Now the German dog, on the other hand, has plenty to occupy his mind. +He is busy and important. Watch him as he walks along harnessed +to his milk cart. No churchwarden at collection time could feel +or look more pleased with himself. He does not do any real work; +the human being does the pushing, he does the barking; that is his idea +of division of labour. What he says to himself is:</p> + +<p>“The old man can’t bark, but he can shove. Very +well.”</p> + +<p>The interest and the pride he takes in the business is quite beautiful +to see. Another dog passing by makes, maybe, some jeering remark, +casting discredit upon the creaminess of the milk. He stops suddenly, +quite regardless of the traffic.</p> + +<p>“I beg your pardon, what was that you said about our milk?”</p> + +<p>“I said nothing about your milk,” retorts the other dog, +in a tone of gentle innocence. “I merely said it was a fine +day, and asked the price of chalk.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, you asked the price of chalk, did you? Would you +like to know?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, thanks; somehow I thought you would be able to tell me.”</p> + +<p>“You are quite right, I can. It’s worth—”</p> + +<p>“Oh, do come along!” says the old lady, who is tired +and hot, and anxious to finish her round.</p> + +<p>“Yes, but hang it all; did you hear what he hinted about our +milk?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, never mind him! There’s a tram coming round +the corner: we shall all get run over.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, but I do mind him; one has one’s proper pride. +He asked the price of chalk, and he’s going to know it! +It’s worth just twenty times as much—”</p> + +<p>“You’ll have the whole thing over, I know you will,” +cries the old lady, pathetically, struggling with all her feeble strength +to haul him back. “Oh dear, oh dear! I do wish I had +left you at home.”</p> + +<p>The tram is bearing down upon them; a cab-driver is shouting at them; +another huge brute, hoping to be in time to take a hand, is dragging +a bread cart, followed by a screaming child, across the road from the +opposite side; a small crowd is collecting; and a policeman is hastening +to the scene.</p> + +<p>“It’s worth,” says the milk dog, “just twenty-times +as much as you’ll be worth before I’ve done with you.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, you think so, do you?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, I do, you grandson of a French poodle, you cabbage-eating—”</p> + +<p>“There! I knew you’d have it over,” says +the poor milk-woman. “I told him he’d have it over.”</p> + +<p>But he is busy, and heeds her not. Five minutes later, when +the traffic is renewed, when the bread girl has collected her muddy +rolls, and the policeman has gone off with the name and address of everybody +in the street, he consents to look behind him.</p> + +<p>“It <i>is</i> a bit of an upset,” he admits. Then +shaking himself free of care, he adds, cheerfully, “But I guess +I taught him the price of chalk. He won’t interfere with +us again, I’m thinking.”</p> + +<p>“I’m sure I hope not,” says the old lady, regarding +dejectedly the milky road.</p> + +<p>But his favourite sport is to wait at the top of the hill for another +dog, and then race down. On these occasions the chief occupation +of the other fellow is to run about behind, picking up the scattered +articles, loaves, cabbages, or shirts, as they are jerked out. +At the bottom of the hill, he stops and waits for his friend.</p> + +<p>“Good race, wasn’t it?” he remarks, panting, as +the Human comes up, laden to the chin. “I believe I’d +have won it, too, if it hadn’t been for that fool of a small boy. +He was right in my way just as I turned the corner. <i>You noticed +him</i>? Wish I had, beastly brat! What’s he yelling +like that for? <i>Because I knocked him down and ran over him</i>? +Well, why didn’t he get out of the way? It’s disgraceful, +the way people leave their children about for other people to tumble +over. Halloa! did all those things come out? You couldn’t +have packed them very carefully; you should see to a thing like that. +<i>You did not dream of my tearing down the hill twenty miles an hour</i>? +Surely, you knew me better than to expect I’d let that old Schneider’s +dog pass me without an effort. But there, you never think. +You’re sure you’ve got them all? <i>You believe so</i>? +I shouldn’t ‘believe’ if I were you; I should run +back up the hill again and make sure. <i>You feel too tired</i>? +Oh, all right! don’t blame me if anything is missing, that’s +all.”</p> + +<p>He is so self-willed. He is cock-sure that the correct turning +is the second on the right, and nothing will persuade him that it is +the third. He is positive he can get across the road in time, +and will not be convinced until he sees the cart smashed up. Then +he is very apologetic, it is true. But of what use is that? +As he is usually of the size and strength of a young bull, and his human +companion is generally a weak-kneed old man or woman, or a small child, +he has his way. The greatest punishment his proprietor can inflict +upon him is to leave him at home, and take the cart out alone. +But your German is too kind-hearted to do this often.</p> + +<p>That he is harnessed to the cart for anybody’s pleasure but +his own it is impossible to believe; and I am confident that the German +peasant plans the tiny harness and fashions the little cart purely with +the hope of gratifying his dog. In other countries—in Belgium, +Holland and France—I have seen these draught dogs ill-treated +and over-worked; but in Germany, never. Germans abuse animals +shockingly. I have seen a German stand in front of his horse and +call it every name he could lay his tongue to. But the horse did +not mind it. I have seen a German, weary with abusing his horse, +call to his wife to come out and assist him. When she came, he +told her what the horse had done. The recital roused the woman’s +temper to almost equal heat with his own; and standing one each side +of the poor beast, they both abused it. They abused its dead mother, +they insulted its father; they made cutting remarks about its personal +appearance, its intelligence, its moral sense, its general ability as +a horse. The animal bore the torrent with exemplary patience for +awhile; then it did the best thing possible to do under the circumstances. +Without losing its own temper, it moved quietly away. The lady +returned to her washing, and the man followed it up the street, still +abusing it.</p> + +<p>A kinder-hearted people than the Germans there is no need for. +Cruelty to animal or child is a thing almost unknown in the land. +The whip with them is a musical instrument; its crack is heard from +morning to night, but an Italian coachman that in the streets of Dresden +I once saw use it was very nearly lynched by the indignant crowd. +Germany is the only country in Europe where the traveller can settle +himself comfortably in his hired carriage, confident that his gentle, +willing friend between the shafts will be neither over-worked nor cruelly +treated.</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>CHAPTER XI</h2> + +<p class="letter"> +Black Forest House: and the sociability therein—Its perfume—George +positively declines to remain in bed after four o’clock in the +morning—The road one cannot miss—My peculiar extra instinct—An +ungrateful party—Harris as a scientist—His cheery confidence—The +village: where it was, and where it ought to have been—George: +his plan—We promenade à la Français—The German +coachman asleep and awake—The man who spreads the English language +abroad.</p> + +<p>There was one night when, tired out and far from town or village, +we slept in a Black Forest farmhouse. The great charm about the +Black Forest house is its sociability. The cows are in the next +room, the horses are upstairs, the geese and ducks are in the kitchen, +while the pigs, the children, and the chickens live all over the place.</p> + +<p>You are dressing, when you hear a grunt behind you.</p> + +<p>“Good-morning! Don’t happen to have any potato +peelings in here? No, I see you haven’t; good-bye.”</p> + +<p>Next there is a cackle, and you see the neck of an old hen stretched +round the corner.</p> + +<p>“Fine morning, isn’t it? You don’t mind my +bringing this worm of mine in here, do you? It is so difficult +in this house to find a room where one can enjoy one’s food with +any quietness. From a chicken I have always been a slow eater, +and when a dozen—there, I thought they wouldn’t leave me +alone. Now they’ll all want a bit. You don’t +mind my getting on the bed, do you? Perhaps here they won’t +notice me.”</p> + +<p>While you are dressing various shock heads peer in at the door; they +evidently regard the room as a temporary menagerie. You cannot +tell whether the heads belong to boys or girls; you can only hope they +are all male. It is of no use shutting the door, because there +is nothing to fasten it by, and the moment you are gone they push it +open again. You breakfast as the Prodigal Son is generally represented +feeding: a pig or two drop in to keep you company; a party of elderly +geese criticise you from the door; you gather from their whispers, added +to their shocked expression, that they are talking scandal about you. +Maybe a cow will condescend to give a glance in.</p> + +<p>This Noah’s Ark arrangement it is, I suppose, that gives to +the Black Forest home its distinctive scent. It is not a scent +you can liken to any one thing. It is as if you took roses and +Limburger cheese and hair oil, some heather and onions, peaches and +soapsuds, together with a dash of sea air and a corpse, and mixed them +up together. You cannot define any particular odour, but you feel +they are all there—all the odours that the world has yet discovered. +People who live in these houses are fond of this mixture. They +do not open the window and lose any of it; they keep it carefully bottled +up. If you want any other scent, you can go outside and smell +the wood violets and the pines; inside there is the house; and after +a while, I am told, you get used to it, so that you miss it, and are +unable to go to sleep in any other atmosphere.</p> + +<p>We had a long walk before us the next day, and it was our desire, +therefore, to get up early, even so early as six o’clock, if that +could be managed without disturbing the whole household. We put +it to our hostess whether she thought this could be done. She +said she thought it could. She might not be about herself at that +time; it was her morning for going into the town, some eight miles off, +and she rarely got back much before seven; but, possibly, her husband +or one of the boys would be returning home to lunch about that hour. +Anyhow, somebody should be sent back to wake us and get our breakfast.</p> + +<p>As it turned out, we did not need any waking. We got up at +four, all by ourselves. We got up at four in order to get away +from the noise and the din that was making our heads ache. What +time the Black Forest peasant rises in the summer time I am unable to +say; to us they appeared to be getting up all night. And the first +thing the Black Forester does when he gets up is to put on a pair of +stout boots with wooden soles, and take a constitutional round the house. +Until he has been three times up and down the stairs, he does not feel +he is up. Once fully awake himself, the next thing he does is +to go upstairs to the stables, and wake up a horse. (The Black +Forest house being built generally on the side of a steep hill, the +ground floor is at the top, and the hay-loft at the bottom.) Then +the horse, it would seem, must also have its constitutional round the +house; and this seen to, the man goes downstairs into the kitchen and +begins to chop wood, and when he has chopped sufficient wood he feels +pleased with himself and begins to sing. All things considered, +we came to the conclusion we could not do better than follow the excellent +example set us. Even George was quite eager to get up that morning.</p> + +<p>We had a frugal breakfast at half-past four, and started away at +five. Our road lay over a mountain, and from enquiries made in +the village it appeared to be one of those roads you cannot possibly +miss. I suppose everybody knows this sort of road. Generally, +it leads you back to where you started from; and when it doesn’t, +you wish it did, so that at all events you might know where you were. +I foresaw evil from the very first, and before we had accomplished a +couple of miles we came up with it. The road divided into three. +A worm-eaten sign-post indicated that the path to the left led to a +place that we had never heard of—that was on no map. Its +other arm, pointing out the direction of the middle road, had disappeared. +The road to the right, so we all agreed, clearly led back again to the +village.</p> + +<p>“The old man said distinctly,” so Harris reminded us, +“keep straight on round the hill.”</p> + +<p>“Which hill?” George asked, pertinently.</p> + +<p>We were confronted by half a dozen, some of them big, some of them +little.</p> + +<p>“He told us,” continued Harris, “that we should +come to a wood.”</p> + +<p>“I see no reason to doubt him,” commented George, “whichever +road we take.”</p> + +<p>As a matter of fact, a dense wood covered every hill.</p> + +<p>“And he said,” murmured Harris, “that we should +reach the top in about an hour and a half.”</p> + +<p>“There it is,” said George, “that I begin to disbelieve +him.”</p> + +<p>“Well, what shall we do?” said Harris.</p> + +<p>Now I happen to possess the bump of locality. It is not a virtue; +I make no boast of it. It is merely an animal instinct that I +cannot help. That things occasionally get in my way—mountains, +precipices, rivers, and such like obstructions—is no fault of +mine. My instinct is correct enough; it is the earth that is wrong. +I led them by the middle road. That the middle road had not character +enough to continue for any quarter of a mile in the same direction; +that after three miles up and down hill it ended abruptly in a wasps’ +nest, was not a thing that should have been laid to my door. If +the middle road had gone in the direction it ought to have done, it +would have taken us to where we wanted to go, of that I am convinced.</p> + +<p>Even as it was, I would have continued to use this gift of mine to +discover a fresh way had a proper spirit been displayed towards me. +But I am not an angel—I admit this frankly,—and I decline +to exert myself for the ungrateful and the ribald. Besides, I +doubt if George and Harris would have followed me further in any event. +Therefore it was that I washed my hands of the whole affair, and that +Harris entered upon the vacancy.</p> + +<p>“Well,” said Harris. “I suppose you are satisfied +with what you have done?”</p> + +<p>“I am quite satisfied,” I replied from the heap of stones +where I was sitting. “So far, I have brought you with safety. +I would continue to lead you further, but no artist can work without +encouragement. You appear dissatisfied with me because you do +not know where you are. For all you know, you may be just where +you want to be. But I say nothing as to that; I expect no thanks. +Go your own way; I have done with you both.”</p> + +<p>I spoke, perhaps, with bitterness, but I could not help it. +Not a word of kindness had I had all the weary way.</p> + +<p>“Do not misunderstand us,” said Harris; “both George +and myself feel that without your assistance we should never be where +we now are. For that we give you every credit. But instinct +is liable to error. What I propose to do is to substitute for +it Science, which is exact. Now, where’s the sun?”</p> + +<p>“Don’t you think,” said George, “that if +we made our way back to the village, and hired a boy for a mark to guide +us, it would save time in the end?”</p> + +<p>“It would be wasting hours,” said Harris, with decision. +“You leave this to me. I have been reading about this thing, +and it has interested me.” He took out his watch, and began +turning himself round and round.</p> + +<p>“It’s as simple as A B C,” he continued. +“You point the short hand at the sun, then you bisect the segment +between the short hand and the twelve, and thus you get the north.”</p> + +<p>He worried up and down for a while, then he fixed it.</p> + +<p>“Now I’ve got it,” he said; “that’s +the north, where that wasps’ nest is. Now give me the map.”</p> + +<p>We handed it to him, and seating himself facing the wasps, he examined +it.</p> + +<p>“Todtmoos from here,” he said, “is south by south-west.”</p> + +<p>“How do you mean, from here?” asked George.</p> + +<p>“Why, from here, where we are,” returned Harris.</p> + +<p>“But where are we?” said George.</p> + +<p>This worried Harris for a time, but at length he cheered up.</p> + +<p>“It doesn’t matter where we are,” he said. +“Wherever we are, Todtmoos is south by south-west. Come +on, we are only wasting time.”</p> + +<p>“I don’t quite see how you make it out,” said George, +as he rose and shouldered his knapsack; “but I suppose it doesn’t +matter. We are out for our health, and it’s all pretty!”</p> + +<p>“We shall be all right,” said Harris, with cheery confidence. +“We shall be in at Todtmoos before ten, don’t you worry. +And at Todtmoos we will have something to eat.”</p> + +<p>He said that he, himself, fancied a beefsteak, followed by an omelette. +George said that, personally, he intended to keep his mind off the subject +until he saw Todtmoos.</p> + +<p>We walked for half an hour, then emerging upon an opening, we saw +below us, about two miles away, the village through which we had passed +that morning. It had a quaint church with an outside staircase, +a somewhat unusual arrangement.</p> + +<p>The sight of it made me sad. We had been walking hard for three +hours and a half, and had accomplished, apparently, about four miles. +But Harris was delighted.</p> + +<p>“Now, at last,” said Harris, “we know where we +are.”</p> + +<p>“I thought you said it didn’t matter,” George reminded +him.</p> + +<p>“No more it does, practically,” replied Harris, “but +it is just as well to be certain. Now I feel more confidence in +myself.”</p> + +<p>“I’m not so sure about that being an advantage,” +muttered George. But I do not think Harris heard him.</p> + +<p>“We are now,” continued Harris, “east of the sun, +and Todtmoos is south-west of where we are. So that if—”</p> + +<p>He broke off. “By-the-by,” he said, “do you +remember whether I said the bisecting line of that segment pointed to +the north or to the south?”</p> + +<p>“You said it pointed to the north,” replied George.</p> + +<p>“Are you positive?” persisted Harris.</p> + +<p>“Positive,” answered George “but don’t let +that influence your calculations. In all probability you were +wrong.”</p> + +<p>Harris thought for a while; then his brow cleared.</p> + +<p>“That’s all right,” he said; “of course, +it’s the north. It must be the north. How could it +be the south? Now we must make for the west. Come on.”</p> + +<p>“I am quite willing to make for the west,” said George; +“any point of the compass is the same to me. I only wish +to remark that, at the present moment, we are going dead east.”</p> + +<p>“No we are not,” returned Harris; “we are going +west.”</p> + +<p>“We are going east, I tell you,” said George.</p> + +<p>“I wish you wouldn’t keep saying that,” said Harris, +“you confuse me.”</p> + +<p>“I don’t mind if I do,” returned George; “I +would rather do that than go wrong. I tell you we are going dead +east.”</p> + +<p>“What nonsense!” retorted Harris; “there’s +the sun.”</p> + +<p>“I can see the sun,” answered George, “quite distinctly. +It may be where it ought to be, according to you and Science, or it +may not. All I know is, that when we were down in the village, +that particular hill with that particular lump of rock upon it was due +north of us. At the present moment we are facing due east.”</p> + +<p>“You are quite right,” said Harris; “I forgot for +the moment that we had turned round.”</p> + +<p>“I should get into the habit of making a note of it, if I were +you,” grumbled George; “it’s a manoeuvre that will +probably occur again more than once.”</p> + +<p>We faced about, and walked in the other direction. At the end +of forty minutes’ climbing we again emerged upon an opening, and +again the village lay just under our feet. On this occasion it +was south of us.</p> + +<p>“This is very extraordinary,” said Harris.</p> + +<p>“I see nothing remarkable about it,” said George. +“If you walk steadily round a village it is only natural that +now and then you get a glimpse of it. Myself, I am glad to see +it. It proves to me that we are not utterly lost.”</p> + +<p>“It ought to be the other side of us,” said Harris.</p> + +<p>“It will be in another hour or so,” said George, “if +we keep on.”</p> + +<p>I said little myself; I was vexed with both of them; but I was glad +to notice George evidently growing cross with Harris. It was absurd +of Harris to fancy he could find the way by the sun.</p> + +<p>“I wish I knew,” said Harris, thoughtfully, “for +certain whether that bisecting line points to the north or to the south.”</p> + +<p>“I should make up my mind about it,” said George; “it’s +an important point.”</p> + +<p>“It’s impossible it can be the north,” said Harris, +“and I’ll tell you why.”</p> + +<p>“You needn’t trouble,” said George; “I am +quite prepared to believe it isn’t.”</p> + +<p>“You said just now it was,” said Harris, reproachfully.</p> + +<p>“I said nothing of the sort,” retorted George. +“I said you said it was—a very different thing. If +you think it isn’t, let’s go the other way. It’ll +be a change, at all events.”</p> + +<p>So Harris worked things out according to the contrary calculation, +and again we plunged into the wood; and again after half an hour’s +stiff climbing we came in view of that same village. True, we +were a little higher, and this time it lay between us and the sun.</p> + +<p>“I think,” said George, as he stood looking down at it, +“this is the best view we’ve had of it, as yet. There +is only one other point from which we can see it. After that, +I propose we go down into it and get some rest.”</p> + +<p>“I don’t believe it’s the same village,” +said Harris; “it can’t be.”</p> + +<p>“There’s no mistaking that church,” said George. +“But maybe it is a case on all fours with that Prague statue. +Possibly, the authorities hereabout have had made some life-sized models +of that village, and have stuck them about the Forest to see where the +thing would look best. Anyhow, which way do we go now?”</p> + +<p>“I don’t know,” said Harris, “and I don’t +care. I have done my best; you’ve done nothing but grumble, +and confuse me.”</p> + +<p>“I may have been critical,” admitted George “but +look at the thing from my point of view. One of you says he’s +got an instinct, and leads me to a wasps’ nest in the middle of +a wood.”</p> + +<p>“I can’t help wasps building in a wood,” I replied.</p> + +<p>“I don’t say you can,” answered George. “I +am not arguing; I am merely stating incontrovertible facts. The +other one, who leads me up and down hill for hours on scientific principles, +doesn’t know the north from the south, and is never quite sure +whether he’s turned round or whether he hasn’t. Personally, +I profess to no instincts beyond the ordinary, nor am I a scientist. +But two fields off I can see a man. I am going to offer him the +worth of the hay he is cutting, which I estimate at one mark fifty pfennig, +to leave his work, and lead me to within sight of Todtmoos. If +you two fellows like to follow, you can. If not, you can start +another system and work it out by yourselves.”</p> + +<p>George’s plan lacked both originality and aplomb, but at the +moment it appealed to us. Fortunately, we had worked round to +a very short distance away from the spot where we had originally gone +wrong; with the result that, aided by the gentleman of the scythe, we +recovered the road, and reached Todtmoos four hours later than we had +calculated to reach it, with an appetite that took forty-five minutes’ +steady work in silence to abate.</p> + +<p>From Todtmoos we had intended to walk down to the Rhine; but having +regard to our extra exertions of the morning, we decided to promenade +in a carriage, as the French would say: and for this purpose hired a +picturesque-looking vehicle, drawn by a horse that I should have called +barrel-bodied but for contrast with his driver, in comparison with whom +he was angular. In Germany every vehicle is arranged for a pair +of horses, but drawn generally by one. This gives to the equipage +a lop-sided appearance, according to our notions, but it is held here +to indicate style. The idea to be conveyed is that you usually +drive a pair of horses, but that for the moment you have mislaid the +other one. The German driver is not what we should call a first-class +whip. He is at his best when he is asleep. Then, at all +events, he is harmless; and the horse being, generally speaking, intelligent +and experienced, progress under these conditions is comparatively safe. +If in Germany they could only train the horse to collect the money at +the end of the journey, there would be no need for a coachman at all. +This would be a distinct relief to the passenger, for when the German +coachman is awake and not cracking his whip he is generally occupied +in getting himself into trouble or out of it. He is better at +the former. Once I recollect driving down a steep Black Forest +hill with a couple of ladies. It was one of those roads winding +corkscrew-wise down the slope. The hill rose at an angle of seventy-five +on the off-side, and fell away at an angle of seventy-five on the near-side. +We were proceeding very comfortably, the driver, we were happy to notice, +with his eyes shut, when suddenly something, a bad dream or indigestion, +awoke him. He seized the reins, and, by an adroit movement, pulled +the near-side horse over the edge, where it clung, half supported by +the traces. Our driver did not appear in the least annoyed or +surprised; both horses, I also, noticed, seemed equally used to the +situation. We got out, and he got down. He took from under +the seat a huge clasp-knife, evidently kept there for the purpose, and +deftly cut the traces. The horse, thus released, rolled over and +over until he struck the road again some fifty feet below. There +he regained his feet and stood waiting for us. We re-entered the +carriage and descended with the single horse until we came to him. +There, with the help of some bits of string, our driver harnessed him +again, and we continued on our way. What impressed me was the +evident accustomedness of both driver and horses to this method of working +down a hill.</p> + +<p>Evidently to them it appeared a short and convenient cut. I +should not have been surprised had the man suggested our strapping ourselves +in, and then rolling over and over, carriage and all, to the bottom.</p> + +<p>Another peculiarity of the German coachman is that he never attempts +to pull in or to pull up. He regulates his rate of speed, not +by the pace of the horse, but by manipulation of the brake. For +eight miles an hour he puts it on slightly, so that it only scrapes +the wheel, producing a continuous sound as of the sharpening of a saw; +for four miles an hour he screws it down harder, and you travel to an +accompaniment of groans and shrieks, suggestive of a symphony of dying +pigs. When he desires to come to a full stop, he puts it on to +its full. If his brake be a good one, he calculates he can stop +his carriage, unless the horse be an extra powerful animal, in less +than twice its own length. Neither the German driver nor the German +horse knows, apparently, that you can stop a carriage by any other method. +The German horse continues to pull with his full strength until he finds +it impossible to move the vehicle another inch; then he rests. +Horses of other countries are quite willing to stop when the idea is +suggested to them. I have known horses content to go even quite +slowly. But your German horse, seemingly, is built for one particular +speed, and is unable to depart from it. I am stating nothing but +the literal, unadorned truth, when I say I have seen a German coachman, +with the reins lying loose over the splash-board, working his brake +with both hands, in terror lest he would not be in time to avoid a collision.</p> + +<p>At Waldshut, one of those little sixteenth-century towns through +which the Rhine flows during its earlier course, we came across that +exceedingly common object of the Continent: the travelling Briton grieved +and surprised at the unacquaintance of the foreigner with the subtleties +of the English language. When we entered the station he was, in +very fair English, though with a slight Somersetshire accent, explaining +to a porter for the tenth time, as he informed us, the simple fact that +though he himself had a ticket for Donaueschingen, and wanted to go +to Donaueschingen, to see the source of the Danube, which is not there, +though they tell you it is, he wished his bicycle to be sent on to Engen +and his bag to Constance, there to await his arrival. He was hot +and angry with the effort of the thing. The porter was a young +man in years, but at the moment looked old and miserable. I offered +my services. I wish now I had not—though not so fervently, +I expect, as he, the speechless one, came subsequently to wish this. +All three routes, so the porter explained to us, were complicated, necessitating +changing and re-changing. There was not much time for calm elucidation, +as our own train was starting in a few minutes. The man himself +was voluble—always a mistake when anything entangled has to be +made clear; while the porter was only too eager to get the job done +with and so breathe again. It dawned upon me ten minutes later, +when thinking the matter over in the train, that though I had agreed +with the porter that it would be best for the bicycle to go by way of +Immendingen, and had agreed to his booking it to Immendingen, I had +neglected to give instructions for its departure from Immendingen. +Were I of a despondent temperament I should be worrying myself at the +present moment with the reflection that in all probability that bicycle +is still at Immendingen to this day. But I regard it as good philosophy +to endeavour always to see the brighter side of things. Possibly +the porter corrected my omission on his own account, or some simple +miracle may have happened to restore that bicycle to its owner some +time before the end of his tour. The bag we sent to Radolfzell: +but here I console myself with the recollection that it was labelled +Constance; and no doubt after a while the railway authorities, finding +it unclaimed at Radolfzell, forwarded it on to Constance.</p> + +<p>But all this is apart from the moral I wished to draw from the incident. +The true inwardness of the situation lay in the indignation of this +Britisher at finding a German railway porter unable to comprehend English. +The moment we spoke to him he expressed this indignation in no measured +terms.</p> + +<p>“Thank you very much indeed,” he said; “it’s +simple enough. I want to go to Donaueschingen myself by train; +from Donaueschingen I am going to walk to Geisengen; from Geisengen +I am going to take the train to Engen, and from Engen I am going to +bicycle to Constance. But I don’t want to take my bag with +me; I want to find it at Constance when I get there. I have been +trying to explain the thing to this fool for the last ten minutes; but +I can’t get it into him.”</p> + +<p>“It is very disgraceful,” I agreed. “Some +of these German workmen know hardly any other language than their own.”</p> + +<p>“I have gone over it with him,” continued the man, “on +the time table, and explained it by pantomime. Even then I could +not knock it into him.”</p> + +<p>“I can hardly believe you,” I again remarked; “you +would think the thing explained itself.”</p> + +<p>Harris was angry with the man; he wished to reprove him for his folly +in journeying through the outlying portions of a foreign clime, and +seeking in such to accomplish complicated railway tricks without knowing +a word of the language of the country. But I checked the impulsiveness +of Harris, and pointed out to him the great and good work at which the +man was unconsciously assisting.</p> + +<p>Shakespeare and Milton may have done their little best to spread +acquaintance with the English tongue among the less favoured inhabitants +of Europe. Newton and Darwin may have rendered their language +a necessity among educated and thoughtful foreigners. Dickens +and Ouida (for your folk who imagine that the literary world is bounded +by the prejudices of New Grub Street, would be surprised and grieved +at the position occupied abroad by this at-home-sneered-at lady) may +have helped still further to popularise it. But the man who has +spread the knowledge of English from Cape St. Vincent to the Ural Mountains +is the Englishman who, unable or unwilling to learn a single word of +any language but his own, travels purse in hand into every corner of +the Continent. One may be shocked at his ignorance, annoyed at +his stupidity, angry at his presumption. But the practical fact +remains; he it is that is anglicising Europe. For him the Swiss +peasant tramps through the snow on winter evenings to attend the English +class open in every village. For him the coachman and the guard, +the chambermaid and the laundress, pore over their English grammars +and colloquial phrase books. For him the foreign shopkeeper and +merchant send their sons and daughters in their thousands to study in +every English town. For him it is that every foreign hotel- and +restaurant-keeper adds to his advertisement: “Only those with +fair knowledge of English need apply.”</p> + +<p>Did the English-speaking races make it their rule to speak anything +else than English, the marvellous progress of the English tongue throughout +the world would stop. The English-speaking man stands amid the +strangers and jingles his gold.</p> + +<p>“Here,” cries, “is payment for all such as can +speak English.”</p> + +<p>He it is who is the great educator. Theoretically we may scold +him; practically we should take our hats off to him. He is the +missionary of the English tongue.</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>CHAPTER XII</h2> + +<p class="letter"> +We are grieved at the earthly instincts of the German—A superb +view, but no restaurant—Continental opinion of the Englishman—That +he does not know enough to come in out of the rain—There comes +a weary traveller with a brick—The hurting of the dog—An +undesirable family residence—A fruitful region—A merry old +soul comes up the hill—George, alarmed at the lateness of the +hour, hastens down the other side—Harris follows him, to show +him the way—I hate being alone, and follow Harris—Pronunciation +specially designed for use of foreigners.</p> + +<p>A thing that vexes much the high-class Anglo-Saxon soul is the earthly +instinct prompting the German to fix a restaurant at the goal of every +excursion. On mountain summit, in fairy glen, on lonely pass, +by waterfall or winding stream, stands ever the busy Wirtschaft. +How can one rhapsodise over a view when surrounded by beer-stained tables? +How lose one’s self in historical reverie amid the odour of roast +veal and spinach?</p> + +<p>One day, on elevating thoughts intent, we climbed through tangled +woods.</p> + +<p>“And at the top,” said Harris, bitterly, as we paused +to breathe a space and pull our belts a hole tighter, “there will +be a gaudy restaurant, where people will be guzzling beefsteaks and +plum tarts and drinking white wine.”</p> + +<p>“Do you think so?” said George.</p> + +<p>“Sure to be,” answered Harris; “you know their +way. Not one grove will they consent to dedicate to solitude and +contemplation; not one height will they leave to the lover of nature +unpolluted by the gross and the material.”</p> + +<p>“I calculate,” I remarked, “that we shall be there +a little before one o’clock, provided we don’t dawdle.”</p> + +<p>“The ‘mittagstisch’ will be just ready,” +groaned Harris, “with possibly some of those little blue trout +they catch about here. In Germany one never seems able to get +away from food and drink. It is maddening!”</p> + +<p>We pushed on, and in the beauty of the walk forgot our indignation. +My estimate proved to be correct.</p> + +<p>At a quarter to one, said Harris, who was leading:</p> + +<p>“Here we are; I can see the summit.”</p> + +<p>“Any sign of that restaurant?” said George.</p> + +<p>“I don’t notice it,” replied Harris; “but +it’s there, you may be sure; confound it!”</p> + +<p>Five minutes later we stood upon the top. We looked north, +south, east and west; then we looked at one another.</p> + +<p>“Grand view, isn’t it?” said Harris.</p> + +<p>“Magnificent,” I agreed.</p> + +<p>“Superb,” remarked George.</p> + +<p>“They have had the good sense for once,” said Harris, +“to put that restaurant out of sight.”</p> + +<p>“They do seem to have hidden it,” said George.</p> + +<p>“One doesn’t mind the thing so much when it is not forced +under one’s nose,” said Harris.</p> + +<p>“Of course, in its place,” I observed, “a restaurant +is right enough.”</p> + +<p>“I should like to know where they have put it,” said +George.</p> + +<p>“Suppose we look for it?” said Harris, with inspiration.</p> + +<p>It seemed a good idea. I felt curious myself. We agreed +to explore in different directions, returning to the summit to report +progress. In half an hour we stood together once again. +There was no need for words. The face of one and all of us announced +plainly that at last we had discovered a recess of German nature untarnished +by the sordid suggestion of food or drink.</p> + +<p>“I should never have believed it possible,” said Harris; +“would you?”</p> + +<p>“I should say,” I replied, “that this is the only +square quarter of a mile in the entire Fatherland unprovided with one.”</p> + +<p>“And we three strangers have struck it,” said George, +“without an effort.”</p> + +<p>“True,” I observed. “By pure good fortune +we are now enabled to feast our finer senses undisturbed by appeal to +our lower nature. Observe the light upon those distant peaks; +is it not ravishing?”</p> + +<p>“Talking of nature,” said George, “which should +you say was the nearest way down?”</p> + +<p>“The road to the left,” I replied, after consulting the +guide book, “takes us to Sonnensteig—where, by-the-by, I +observe the ‘Goldener Adler’ is well spoken of—in +about two hours. The road to the right, though somewhat longer, +commands more extensive prospects.”</p> + +<p>“One prospect,” said Harris, “is very much like +another prospect; don’t you think so?”</p> + +<p>“Personally,” said George, “I am going by the left-hand +road.” And Harris and I went after him.</p> + +<p>But we were not to get down so soon as we had anticipated. +Storms come quickly in these regions, and before we had walked for quarter +of an hour it became a question of seeking shelter or living for the +rest of the day in soaked clothes. We decided on the former alternative, +and selected a tree that, under ordinary circumstances, should have +been ample protection. But a Black Forest thunderstorm is not +an ordinary circumstance. We consoled ourselves at first by telling +each other that at such a rate it could not last long. Next, we +endeavoured to comfort ourselves with the reflection that if it did +we should soon be too wet to fear getting wetter.</p> + +<p>“As it turned out,” said Harris, “I should have +been almost glad if there had been a restaurant up here.”</p> + +<p>“I see no advantage in being both wet <i>and</i> hungry,” +said George. “I shall give it another five minutes, then +I am going on.”</p> + +<p>“These mountain solitudes,” I remarked, “are very +attractive in fine weather. On a rainy day, especially if you +happen to be past the age when—”</p> + +<p>At this point there hailed us a voice, proceeding from a stout gentleman, +who stood some fifty feet away from us under a big umbrella.</p> + +<p>“Won’t you come inside?” asked the stout gentleman.</p> + +<p>“Inside where?” I called back. I thought at first +he was one of those fools that will try to be funny when there is nothing +to be funny about.</p> + +<p>“Inside the restaurant,” he answered.</p> + +<p>We left our shelter and made for him. We wished for further +information about this thing.</p> + +<p>“I did call to you from the window,” said the stout gentleman, +as we drew near to him, “but I suppose you did not hear me. +This storm may last for another hour; you will get <i>so</i> wet.”</p> + +<p>He was a kindly old gentleman; he seemed quite anxious about us.</p> + +<p>I said: “It is very kind of you to have come out. We +are not lunatics. We have not been standing under that tree for +the last half-hour knowing all the time there was a restaurant, hidden +by the trees, within twenty yards of us. We had no idea we were +anywhere near a restaurant.”</p> + +<p>“I thought maybe you hadn’t,” said the old gentleman; +“that is why I came.”</p> + +<p>It appeared that all the people in the inn had been watching us from +the windows also, wondering why we stood there looking miserable. +If it had not been for this nice old gentleman the fools would have +remained watching us, I suppose, for the rest of the afternoon. +The landlord excused himself by saying he thought we looked like English. +It is no figure of speech. On the Continent they do sincerely +believe that every Englishman is mad. They are as convinced of +it as is every English peasant that Frenchmen live on frogs. Even +when one makes a direct personal effort to disabuse them of the impression +one is not always successful.</p> + +<p>It was a comfortable little restaurant, where they cooked well, while +the Tischwein was really most passable. We stopped there for a +couple of hours, and dried ourselves and fed ourselves, and talked about +the view; and just before we left an incident occurred that shows how +much more stirring in this world are the influences of evil compared +with those of good.</p> + +<p>A traveller entered. He seemed a careworn man. He carried +a brick in his hand, tied to a piece of rope. He entered nervously +and hurriedly, closed the door carefully behind him, saw to it that +it was fastened, peered out of the window long and earnestly, and then, +with a sigh of relief, laid his brick upon the bench beside him and +called for food and drink.</p> + +<p>There was something mysterious about the whole affair. One +wondered what he was going to do with the brick, why he had closed the +door so carefully, why he had looked so anxiously from the window; but +his aspect was too wretched to invite conversation, and we forbore, +therefore, to ask him questions. As he ate and drank he grew more +cheerful, sighed less often. Later he stretched his legs, lit +an evil-smelling cigar, and puffed in calm contentment.</p> + +<p>Then it happened. It happened too suddenly for any detailed +explanation of the thing to be possible. I recollect a Fräulein +entering the room from the kitchen with a pan in her hand. I saw +her cross to the outer door. The next moment the whole room was +in an uproar. One was reminded of those pantomime transformation +scenes where, from among floating clouds, slow music, waving flowers, +and reclining fairies, one is suddenly transported into the midst of +shouting policemen tumbling yelling babies, swells fighting pantaloons, +sausages and harlequins, buttered slides and clowns. As the Fräulein +of the pan touched the door it flew open, as though all the spirits +of sin had been pressed against it, waiting. Two pigs and a chicken +rushed into the room; a cat that had been sleeping on a beer-barrel +spluttered into fiery life. The Fräulein threw her pan into +the air and lay down on the floor. The gentleman with the brick +sprang to his feet, upsetting the table before him with everything upon +it.</p> + +<p>One looked to see the cause of this disaster: one discovered it at +once in the person of a mongrel terrier with pointed ears and a squirrel’s +tail. The landlord rushed out from another door, and attempted +to kick him out of the room. Instead, he kicked one of the pigs, +the fatter of the two. It was a vigorous, well-planted kick, and +the pig got the whole of it; none of it was wasted. One felt sorry +for the poor animal; but no amount of sorrow anyone else might feel +for him could compare with the sorrow he felt for himself. He +stopped running about; he sat down in the middle of the room, and appealed +to the solar system generally to observe this unjust thing that had +come upon him. They must have heard his complaint in the valleys +round about, and have wondered what upheaval of nature was taking place +among the hills.</p> + +<p>As for the hen it scuttled, screaming, every way at once. It +was a marvellous bird: it seemed to be able to run up a straight wall +quite easily; and it and the cat between them fetched down mostly everything +that was not already on the floor. In less than forty seconds +there were nine people in that room, all trying to kick one dog. +Possibly, now and again, one or another may have succeeded, for occasionally +the dog would stop barking in order to howl. But it did not discourage +him. Everything has to be paid for, he evidently argued, even +a pig and chicken hunt; and, on the whole, the game was worth it.</p> + +<p>Besides, he had the satisfaction of observing that, for every kick +he received, most other living things in the room got two. As +for the unfortunate pig—the stationary one, the one that still +sat lamenting in the centre of the room—he must have averaged +a steady four. Trying to kick this dog was like playing football +with a ball that was never there—not when you went to kick it, +but after you had started to kick it, and had gone too far to stop yourself, +so that the kick had to go on in any case, your only hope being that +your foot would find something or another solid to stop it, and so save +you from sitting down on the floor noisily and completely. When +anybody did kick the dog it was by pure accident, when they were not +expecting to kick him; and, generally speaking, this took them so unawares +that, after kicking him, they fell over him. And everybody, every +half-minute, would be certain to fall over the pig the sitting pig, +the one incapable of getting out of anybody’s way.</p> + +<p>How long the scrimmage might have lasted it is impossible to say. +It was ended by the judgment of George. For a while he had been +seeking to catch, not the dog but the remaining pig, the one still capable +of activity. Cornering it at last, he persuaded it to cease running +round and round the room, and instead to take a spin outside. +It shot through the door with one long wail.</p> + +<p>We always desire the thing we have not. One pig, a chicken, +nine people, and a cat, were as nothing in that dog’s opinion +compared with the quarry that was disappearing. Unwisely, he darted +after it, and George closed the door upon him and shot the bolt.</p> + +<p>Then the landlord stood up, and surveyed all the things that were +lying on the floor.</p> + +<p>“That’s a playful dog of yours,” said he to the +man who had come in with the brick.</p> + +<p>“He is not my dog,” replied the man sullenly.</p> + +<p>“Whose dog is it then?” said the landlord.</p> + +<p>“I don’t know whose dog it is,” answered the man.</p> + +<p>“That won’t do for me, you know,” said the landlord, +picking up a picture of the German Emperor, and wiping beer from it +with his sleeve.</p> + +<p>“I know it won’t,” replied the man; “I never +expected it would. I’m tired of telling people it isn’t +my dog. They none of them believe me.”</p> + +<p>“What do you want to go about with him for, if he’s not +your dog?” said the landlord. “What’s the attraction +about him?”</p> + +<p>“I don’t go about with him,” replied the man; “he +goes about with me. He picked me up this morning at ten o’clock, +and he won’t leave me. I thought I had got rid of him when +I came in here. I left him busy killing a duck more than a quarter +of an hour away. I’ll have to pay for that, I expect, on +my way back.”</p> + +<p>“Have you tried throwing stones at him?” asked Harris.</p> + +<p>“Have I tried throwing stones at him!” replied the man, +contemptuously. “I’ve been throwing stones at him +till my arm aches with throwing stones; and he thinks it’s a game, +and brings them back to me. I’ve been carrying this beastly +brick about with me for over an hour, in the hope of being able to drown +him, but he never comes near enough for me to get hold of him. +He just sits six inches out of reach with his mouth open, and looks +at me.”</p> + +<p>“It’s the funniest story I’ve heard for a long +while,” said the landlord.</p> + +<p>“Glad it amuses somebody,” said the man.</p> + +<p>We left him helping the landlord to pick up the broken things, and +went our way. A dozen yards outside the door the faithful animal +was waiting for his friend. He looked tired, but contented. +He was evidently a dog of strange and sudden fancies, and we feared +for the moment lest he might take a liking to us. But he let us +pass with indifference. His loyalty to this unresponsive man was +touching; and we made no attempt to undermine it.</p> + +<p>Having completed to our satisfaction the Black Forest, we journeyed +on our wheels through Alt Breisach and Colmar to Münster; whence +we started a short exploration of the Vosges range, where, according +to the present German Emperor, humanity stops. Of old, Alt Breisach, +a rocky fortress with the river now on one side of it and now on the +other—for in its inexperienced youth the Rhine never seems to +have been quite sure of its way,—must, as a place of residence, +have appealed exclusively to the lover of change and excitement. +Whoever the war was between, and whatever it was about, Alt Breisach +was bound to be in it. Everybody besieged it, most people captured +it; the majority of them lost it again; nobody seemed able to keep it. +Whom he belonged to, and what he was, the dweller in Alt Breisach could +never have been quite sure. One day he would be a Frenchman, and +then before he could learn enough French to pay his taxes he would be +an Austrian. While trying to discover what you did in order to +be a good Austrian, he would find he was no longer an Austrian, but +a German, though what particular German out of the dozen must always +have been doubtful to him. One day he would discover that he was +a Catholic, the next an ardent Protestant. The only thing that +could have given any stability to his existence must have been the monotonous +necessity of paying heavily for the privilege of being whatever for +the moment he was. But when one begins to think of these things +one finds oneself wondering why anybody in the Middle Ages, except kings +and tax collectors, ever took the trouble to live at all.</p> + +<p>For variety and beauty, the Vosges will not compare with the hills +of the Schwarzwald. The advantage about them from the tourist’s +point of view is their superior poverty. The Vosges peasant has +not the unromantic air of contented prosperity that spoils his <i>vis-a-vis</i> +across the Rhine. The villages and farms possess more the charm +of decay. Another point wherein the Vosges district excels is +its ruins. Many of its numerous castles are perched where you +might think only eagles would care to build. In others, commenced +by the Romans and finished by the Troubadours, covering acres with the +maze of their still standing walls, one may wander for hours.</p> + +<p>The fruiterer and greengrocer is a person unknown in the Vosges. +Most things of that kind grow wild, and are to be had for the picking. +It is difficult to keep to any programme when walking through the Vosges, +the temptation on a hot day to stop and eat fruit generally being too +strong for resistance. Raspberries, the most delicious I have +ever tasted, wild strawberries, currants, and gooseberries, grow upon +the hill-sides as black-berries by English lanes. The Vosges small +boy is not called upon to rob an orchard; he can make himself ill without +sin. Orchards exist in the Vosges mountains in plenty; but to +trespass into one for the purpose of stealing fruit would be as foolish +as for a fish to try and get into a swimming bath without paying. +Still, of course, mistakes do occur.</p> + +<p>One afternoon in the course of a climb we emerged upon a plateau, +where we lingered perhaps too long, eating more fruit than may have +been good for us; it was so plentiful around us, so varied. We +commenced with a few late strawberries, and from those we passed to +raspberries. Then Harris found a greengage-tree with some early +fruit upon it, just perfect.</p> + +<p>“This is about the best thing we have struck,” said George; +“we had better make the most of this.” Which was good +advice, on the face of it.</p> + +<p>“It is a pity,” said Harris, “that the pears are +still so hard.”</p> + +<p>He grieved about this for a while, but later on came across some +remarkably fine yellow plums and these consoled him somewhat.</p> + +<p>“I suppose we are still a bit too far north for pineapples,” +said George. “I feel I could just enjoy a fresh pineapple. +This commonplace fruit palls upon one after a while.”</p> + +<p>“Too much bush fruit and not enough tree, is the fault I find,” +said Harris. “Myself, I should have liked a few more greengages.”</p> + +<p>“Here is a man coming up the hill,” I observed, “who +looks like a native. Maybe, he will know where we can find some +more greengages.”</p> + +<p>“He walks well for an old chap,” remarked Harris.</p> + +<p>He certainly was climbing the hill at a remarkable pace. Also, +so far as we were able to judge at that distance, he appeared to be +in a remarkably cheerful mood, singing and shouting at the top of his +voice, gesticulating, and waving his arms.</p> + +<p>“What a merry old soul it is,” said Harris; “it +does one good to watch him. But why does he carry his stick over +his shoulder? Why doesn’t he use it to help him up the hill?”</p> + +<p>“Do you know, I don’t think it is a stick,” said +George.</p> + +<p>“What can it be, then?” asked Harris.</p> + +<p>“Well, it looks to me,” said George, “more like +a gun.”</p> + +<p>“You don’t think we can have made a mistake?” suggested +Harris. “You don’t think this can be anything in the +nature of a private orchard?”</p> + +<p>I said: “Do you remember the sad thing that happened in the +South of France some two years ago? A soldier picked some cherries +as he passed a house, and the French peasant to whom the cherries belonged +came out, and without a word of warning shot him dead.”</p> + +<p>“But surely you are not allowed to shoot a man dead for picking +fruit, even in France?” said George.</p> + +<p>“Of course not,” I answered. “It was quite +illegal. The only excuse offered by his counsel was that he was +of a highly excitable disposition, and especially keen about these particular +cherries.”</p> + +<p>“I recollect something about the case,” said Harris, +“now you mention it. I believe the district in which it +happened—the ‘Commune,’ as I think it is called—had +to pay heavy compensation to the relatives of the deceased soldier; +which was only fair.”</p> + +<p>George said: “I am tired of this place. Besides, it’s +getting late.”</p> + +<p>Harris said: “If he goes at that rate he will fall and hurt +himself. Besides, I don’t believe he knows the way.”</p> + +<p>I felt lonesome up there all by myself, with nobody to speak to. +Besides, not since I was a boy, I reflected, had I enjoyed a run down +a really steep hill. I thought I would see if I could revive the +sensation. It is a jerky exercise, but good, I should say, for +the liver.</p> + +<p>We slept that night at Barr, a pleasant little town on the way to +St. Ottilienberg, an interesting old convent among the mountains, where +you are waited upon by real nuns, and your bill made out by a priest. +At Barr, just before supper a tourist entered. He looked English, +but spoke a language the like of which I have never heard before. +Yet it was an elegant and fine-sounding language. The landlord +stared at him blankly; the landlady shook her head. He sighed, +and tried another, which somehow recalled to me forgotten memories, +though, at the time, I could not fix it. But again nobody understood +him.</p> + +<p>“This is damnable,” he said aloud to himself.</p> + +<p>“Ah, you are English!” exclaimed the landlord, brightening +up.</p> + +<p>“And Monsieur looks tired,” added the bright little landlady. +“Monsieur will have supper.”</p> + +<p>They both spoke English excellently, nearly as well as they spoke +French and German; and they bustled about and made him comfortable. +At supper he sat next to me, and I talked to him.</p> + +<p>“Tell me,” I said—I was curious on the subject—“what +language was it you spoke when you first came in?”</p> + +<p>“German,” he explained.</p> + +<p>“Oh,” I replied, “I beg your pardon.”</p> + +<p>“You did not understand it?” he continued.</p> + +<p>“It must have been my fault,” I answered; “my knowledge +is extremely limited. One picks up a little here and there as +one goes about, but of course that is a different thing.”</p> + +<p>“But <i>they</i> did not understand it,” he replied, +“the landlord and his wife; and it is their own language.”</p> + +<p>“I do not think so,” I said. “The children +hereabout speak German, it is true, and our landlord and landlady know +German to a certain point. But throughout Alsace and Lorraine +the old people still talk French.”</p> + +<p>“And I spoke to them in French also,” he added, “and +they understood that no better.”</p> + +<p>“It is certainly very curious,” I agreed.</p> + +<p>“It is more than curious,” he replied; “in my case +it is incomprehensible. I possess a diploma for modern languages. +I won my scholarship purely on the strength of my French and German. +The correctness of my construction, the purity of my pronunciation, +was considered at my college to be quite remarkable. Yet, when +I come abroad hardly anybody understands a word I say. Can you +explain it?”</p> + +<p>“I think I can,” I replied. “Your pronunciation +is too faultless. You remember what the Scotsman said when for +the first time in his life he tasted real whisky: ‘It may be puir, +but I canna drink it’; so it is with your German. It strikes +one less as a language than as an exhibition. If I might offer +advice, I should say: Mispronounce as much as possible, and throw in +as many mistakes as you can think of.”</p> + +<p>It is the same everywhere. Each country keeps a special pronunciation +exclusively for the use of foreigners—a pronunciation they never +dream of using themselves, that they cannot understand when it is used. +I once heard an English lady explaining to a Frenchman how to pronounce +the word Have.</p> + +<p>“You will pronounce it,” said the lady reproachfully, +“as if it were spelt H-a-v. It isn’t. There +is an ‘e’ at the end.”</p> + +<p>“But I thought,” said the pupil, “that you did +not sound the ‘e’ at the end of h-a-v-e.”</p> + +<p>“No more you do,” explained his teacher. “It +is what we call a mute ‘e’; but it exercises a modifying +influence on the preceding vowel.”</p> + +<p>Before that, he used to say “have” quite intelligently. +Afterwards, when he came to the word he would stop dead, collect his +thoughts, and give expression to a sound that only the context could +explain.</p> + +<p>Putting aside the sufferings of the early martyrs, few men, I suppose, +have gone through more than I myself went through in trying to I attain +the correct pronunciation of the German word for church—“Kirche.” +Long before I had done with it I had determined never to go to church +in Germany, rather than be bothered with it.</p> + +<p>“No, no,” my teacher would explain—he was a painstaking +gentleman; “you say it as if it were spelt K-i-r-c-h-k-e. +There is no k. It is——.” And he would illustrate +to me again, for the twentieth time that morning, how it should be pronounced; +the sad thing being that I could never for the life of me detect any +difference between the way he said it and the way I said it. So +he would try a new method.</p> + +<p>“You say it from your throat,” he would explain. +He was quite right; I did. “I want you to say it from down +here,” and with a fat forefinger he would indicate the region +from where I was to start. After painful efforts, resulting in +sounds suggestive of anything rather than a place of worship, I would +excuse myself.</p> + +<p>“I really fear it is impossible,” I would say. +“You see, for years I have always talked with my mouth, as it +were; I never knew a man could talk with his stomach. I doubt +if it is not too late now for me to learn.”</p> + +<p>By spending hours in dark corners, and practising in silent streets, +to the terror of chance passers-by, I came at last to pronounce this +word correctly. My teacher was delighted with me, and until I +came to Germany I was pleased with myself. In Germany I found +that nobody understood what I meant by it. I never got near a +church with it. I had to drop the correct pronunciation, and painstakingly +go back to my first wrong pronunciation. Then they would brighten +up, and tell me it was round the corner, or down the next street, as +the case might be.</p> + +<p>I also think pronunciation of a foreign tongue could be better taught +than by demanding from the pupil those internal acrobatic feats that +are generally impossible and always useless. This is the sort +of instruction one receives:</p> + +<p>“Press your tonsils against the underside of your larynx. +Then with the convex part of the septum curved upwards so as almost—but +not quite—to touch the uvula, try with the tip of your tongue +to reach your thyroid. Take a deep breath, and compress your glottis. +Now, without opening your lips, say ‘Garoo.’”</p> + +<p>And when you have done it they are not satisfied.</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>CHAPTER XIII</h2> + +<p class="letter"> +An examination into the character and behaviour of the German student—The +German Mensur—Uses and abuses of use—Views of an impressionist—The +humour of the thing—Recipe for making savages—The Jungfrau: +her peculiar taste in laces—The Kneipe—How to rub a Salamander—Advice +to the stranger—A story that might have ended sadly—Of two +men and two wives—Together with a bachelor.</p> + +<p>On our way home we included a German University town, being wishful +to obtain an insight into the ways of student life, a curiosity that +the courtesy of German friends enabled us to gratify.</p> + +<p>The English boy plays till he is fifteen, and works thence till twenty. +In Germany it is the child that works; the young man that plays. +The German boy goes to school at seven o’clock in the summer, +at eight in the winter, and at school he studies. The result is +that at sixteen he has a thorough knowledge of the classics and mathematics, +knows as much history as any man compelled to belong to a political +party is wise in knowing, together with a thorough grounding in modern +languages. Therefore his eight College Semesters, extending over +four years, are, except for the young man aiming at a professorship, +unnecessarily ample. He is not a sportsman, which is a pity, for +he should make good one. He plays football a little, bicycles +still less; plays French billiards in stuffy cafés more. +But generally speaking he, or the majority of him, lays out his time +bummeling, beer drinking, and fighting. If he be the son of a +wealthy father he joins a Korps—to belong to a crack Korps costs +about four hundred pounds a year. If he be a middle-class young +man, he enrols himself in a Burschenschaft, or a Landsmannschaft, which +is a little cheaper. These companies are again broken up into +smaller circles, in which attempt is made to keep to nationality. +There are the Swabians, from Swabia; the Frankonians, descendants of +the Franks; the Thuringians, and so forth. In practice, of course, +this results as all such attempts do result—I believe half our +Gordon Highlanders are Cockneys—but the picturesque object is +obtained of dividing each University into some dozen or so separate +companies of students, each one with its distinctive cap and colours, +and, quite as important, its own particular beer hall, into which no +other student wearing his colours may come.</p> + +<p>The chief work of these student companies is to fight among themselves, +or with some rival Korps or Schaft, the celebrated German Mensur.</p> + +<p>The Mensur has been described so often and so thoroughly that I do +not intend to bore my readers with any detailed account of it. +I merely come forward as an impressionist, and I write purposely the +impression of my first Mensur, because I believe that first impressions +are more true and useful than opinions blunted by intercourse, or shaped +by influence.</p> + +<p>A Frenchman or a Spaniard will seek to persuade you that the bull-ring +is an institution got up chiefly for the benefit of the bull. +The horse which you imagined to be screaming with pain was only laughing +at the comical appearance presented by its own inside. Your French +or Spanish friend contrasts its glorious and exciting death in the ring +with the cold-blooded brutality of the knacker’s yard. If +you do not keep a tight hold of your head, you come away with the desire +to start an agitation for the inception of the bull-ring in England +as an aid to chivalry. No doubt Torquemada was convinced of the +humanity of the Inquisition. To a stout gentleman, suffering, +perhaps, from cramp or rheumatism, an hour or so on the rack was really +a physical benefit. He would rise feeling more free in his joints—more +elastic, as one might say, than he had felt for years. English +huntsmen regard the fox as an animal to be envied. A day’s +excellent sport is provided for him free of charge, during which he +is the centre of attraction.</p> + +<p>Use blinds one to everything one does not wish to see. Every +third German gentleman you meet in the street still bears, and will +bear to his grave, marks of the twenty to a hundred duels he has fought +in his student days. The German children play at the Mensur in +the nursery, rehearse it in the gymnasium. The Germans have come +to persuade themselves there is no brutality in it—nothing offensive, +nothing degrading. Their argument is that it schools the German +youth to coolness and courage. If this could be proved, the argument, +particularly in a country where every man is a soldier, would be sufficiently +one-sided. But is the virtue of the prize-fighter the virtue of +the soldier? One doubts it. Nerve and dash are surely of +more service in the field than a temperament of unreasoning indifference +as to what is happening to one. As a matter of fact, the German +student would have to be possessed of much more courage not to fight. +He fights not to please himself, but to satisfy a public opinion that +is two hundred years behind the times.</p> + +<p>All the Mensur does is to brutalise him. There may be skill +displayed—I am told there is,—but it is not apparent. +The mere fighting is like nothing so much as a broadsword combat at +a Richardson’s show; the display as a whole a successful attempt +to combine the ludicrous with the unpleasant. In aristocratic +Bonn, where style is considered, and in Heidelberg, where visitors from +other nations are more common, the affair is perhaps more formal. +I am told that there the contests take place in handsome rooms; that +grey-haired doctors wait upon the wounded, and liveried servants upon +the hungry, and that the affair is conducted throughout with a certain +amount of picturesque ceremony. In the more essentially German +Universities, where strangers are rare and not much encouraged, the +simple essentials are the only things kept in view, and these are not +of an inviting nature.</p> + +<p>Indeed, so distinctly uninviting are they, that I strongly advise +the sensitive reader to avoid even this description of them. The +subject cannot be made pretty, and I do not intend to try.</p> + +<p>The room is bare and sordid; its walls splashed with mixed stains +of beer, blood, and candle-grease; its ceiling, smoky; its floor, sawdust +covered. A crowd of students, laughing, smoking, talking, some +sitting on the floor, others perched upon chairs and benches form the +framework.</p> + +<p>In the centre, facing one another, stand the combatants, resembling +Japanese warriors, as made familiar to us by the Japanese tea-tray. +Quaint and rigid, with their goggle-covered eyes, their necks tied up +in comforters, their bodies smothered in what looks like dirty bed quilts, +their padded arms stretched straight above their heads, they might be +a pair of ungainly clockwork figures. The seconds, also more or +less padded—their heads and faces protected by huge leather-peaked +caps,—drag them out into their proper position. One almost +listens to hear the sound of the castors. The umpire takes his +place, the word is given, and immediately there follow five rapid clashes +of the long straight swords. There is no interest in watching +the fight: there is no movement, no skill, no grace. (I am speaking of +my own impressions.) The strongest man wins; the man who, with +his heavily-padded arm, always in an unnatural position, can hold his +huge clumsy sword longest without growing too weak to be able either +to guard or to strike.</p> + +<p>The whole interest is centred in watching the wounds. They +come always in one of two places—on the top of the head or the +left side of the face. Sometimes a portion of hairy scalp or section +of cheek flies up into the air, to be carefully preserved in an envelope +by its proud possessor, or, strictly speaking, its proud former possessor, +and shown round on convivial evenings; and from every wound, of course, +flows a plentiful stream of blood. It splashes doctors, seconds, +and spectators; it sprinkles ceiling and walls; it saturates the fighters, +and makes pools for itself in the sawdust. At the end of each +round the doctors rush up, and with hands already dripping with blood +press together the gaping wounds, dabbing them with little balls of +wet cotton wool, which an attendant carries ready on a plate. +Naturally, the moment the men stand up again and commence work, the +blood gushes out again, half blinding them, and rendering the ground +beneath them slippery. Now and then you see a man’s teeth +laid bare almost to the ear, so that for the rest of the duel he appears +to be grinning at one half of the spectators, his other side, remaining +serious; and sometimes a man’s nose gets slit, which gives to +him as he fights a singularly supercilious air.</p> + +<p>As the object of each student is to go away from the University bearing +as many scars as possible, I doubt if any particular pains are taken +to guard, even to the small extent such method of fighting can allow. +The real victor is he who comes out with the greatest number of wounds; +he who then, stitched and patched almost to unrecognition as a human +being, can promenade for the next month, the envy of the German youth, +the admiration of the German maiden. He who obtains only a few +unimportant wounds retires sulky and disappointed.</p> + +<p>But the actual fighting is only the beginning of the fun. The +second act of the spectacle takes place in the dressing-room. +The doctors are generally mere medical students—young fellows +who, having taken their degree, are anxious for practice. Truth +compels me to say that those with whom I came in contact were coarse-looking +men who seemed rather to relish their work. Perhaps they are not +to be blamed for this. It is part of the system that as much further +punishment as possible must be inflicted by the doctor, and the ideal +medical man might hardly care for such job. How the student bears +the dressing of his wounds is as important as how he receives them. +Every operation has to be performed as brutally as may be, and his companions +carefully watch him during the process to see that he goes through it +with an appearance of peace and enjoyment. A clean-cut wound that +gapes wide is most desired by all parties. On purpose it is sewn +up clumsily, with the hope that by this means the scar will last a lifetime. +Such a wound, judiciously mauled and interfered with during the week +afterwards, can generally be reckoned on to secure its fortunate possessor +a wife with a dowry of five figures at the least.</p> + +<p>These are the general bi-weekly Mensurs, of which the average student +fights some dozen a year. There are others to which visitors are +not admitted. When a student is considered to have disgraced himself +by some slight involuntary movement of the head or body while fighting, +then he can only regain his position by standing up to the best swordsman +in his Korps. He demands and is accorded, not a contest, but a +punishment. His opponent then proceeds to inflict as many and +as bloody wounds as can be taken. The object of the victim is +to show his comrades that he can stand still while his head is half +sliced from his skull.</p> + +<p>Whether anything can properly be said in favour of the German Mensur +I am doubtful; but if so it concerns only the two combatants. +Upon the spectators it can and does, I am convinced, exercise nothing +but evil. I know myself sufficiently well to be sure I am not +of an unusually bloodthirsty disposition. The effect it had upon +me can only be the usual effect. At first, before the actual work +commenced, my sensation was curiosity mingled with anxiety as to how +the sight would trouble me, though some slight acquaintance with dissecting-rooms +and operating tables left me less doubt on that point than I might otherwise +have felt. As the blood began to flow, and nerves and muscles +to be laid bare, I experienced a mingling of disgust and pity. +But with the second duel, I must confess, my finer feelings began to +disappear; and by the time the third was well upon its way, and the +room heavy with the curious hot odour of blood, I began, as the American +expression is, to see things red.</p> + +<p>I wanted more. I looked from face to face surrounding me, and +in most of them I found reflected undoubtedly my own sensations. +If it be a good thing to excite this blood thirst in the modern man, +then the Mensur is a useful institution. But is it a good thing? +We prate about our civilisation and humanity, but those of us who do +not carry hypocrisy to the length of self-deception know that underneath +our starched shirts there lurks the savage, with all his savage instincts +untouched. Occasionally he may be wanted, but we never need fear +his dying out. On the other hand, it seems unwise to over-nourish +him.</p> + +<p>In favour of the duel, seriously considered, there are many points +to be urged. But the Mensur serves no good purpose whatever. +It is childishness, and the fact of its being a cruel and brutal game +makes it none the less childish. Wounds have no intrinsic value +of their own; it is the cause that dignifies them, not their size. +William Tell is rightly one of the heroes of the world; but what should +we think of the members of a club of fathers, formed with the object +of meeting twice a week to shoot apples from their sons’ heads +with cross-bows? These young German gentlemen could obtain all +the results of which they are so proud by teasing a wild cat! +To join a society for the mere purpose of getting yourself hacked about +reduces a man to the intellectual level of a dancing Dervish. +Travellers tell us of savages in Central Africa who express their feelings +on festive occasions by jumping about and slashing themselves. +But there is no need for Europe to imitate them. The Mensur is, +in fact, the <i>reductio ad absurdum</i> of the duel; and if the Germans +themselves cannot see that it is funny, one can only regret their lack +of humour.</p> + +<p>But though one may be unable to agree with the public opinion that +supports and commands the Mensur, it at least is possible to understand. +The University code that, if it does not encourage it, at least condones +drunkenness, is more difficult to treat argumentatively. All German +students do not get drunk; in fact, the majority are sober, if not industrious. +But the minority, whose claim to be representative is freely admitted, +are only saved from perpetual inebriety by ability, acquired at some +cost, to swill half the day and all the night, while retaining to some +extent their five senses. It does not affect all alike, but it +is common in any University town to see a young man not yet twenty with +the figure of a Falstaff and the complexion of a Rubens Bacchus. +That the German maiden can be fascinated with a face, cut and gashed +till it suggests having been made out of odd materials that never could +have fitted, is a proved fact. But surely there can be no attraction +about a blotched and bloated skin and a “bay window” thrown +out to an extent threatening to overbalance the whole structure. +Yet what else can be expected, when the youngster starts his beer-drinking +with a “Fruhschoppen” at 10 a.m., and closes it with a “Kneipe” +at four in the morning?</p> + +<p>The Kneipe is what we should call a stag party, and can be very harmless +or very rowdy, according to its composition. One man invites his +fellow-students, a dozen or a hundred, to a café, and provides +them with as much beer and as many cheap cigars as their own sense of +health and comfort may dictate, or the host may be the Korps itself. +Here, as everywhere, you observe the German sense of discipline and +order. As each new comer enters all those sitting round the table +rise, and with heels close together salute. When the table is +complete, a chairman is chosen, whose duty it is to give out the number +of the songs. Printed books of these songs, one to each two men, +lie round the table. The chairman gives out number twenty-nine. +“First verse,” he cries, and away all go, each two men holding +a book between them exactly as two people might hold a hymn-book in +church. There is a pause at the end of each verse until the chairman +starts the company on the next. As every German is a trained singer, +and as most of them have fair voices, the general effect is striking.</p> + +<p>Although the manner may be suggestive of the singing of hymns in +church, the words of the songs are occasionally such as to correct this +impression. But whether it be a patriotic song, a sentimental +ballad, or a ditty of a nature that would shock the average young Englishman, +all are sung through with stern earnestness, without a laugh, without +a false note. At the end, the chairman calls “Prosit!” +Everyone answers “Prosit!” and the next moment every glass +is empty. The pianist rises and bows, and is bowed to in return; +and then the Fräulein enters to refill the glasses.</p> + +<p>Between the songs, toasts are proposed and responded to; but there +is little cheering, and less laughter. Smiles and grave nods of +approval are considered as more seeming among German students.</p> + +<p>A particular toast, called a Salamander, accorded to some guest as +a special distinction, is drunk with exceptional solemnity.</p> + +<p>“We will now,” says the chairman, “a Salamander +rub” (“Einen Salamander reiben”). We all +rise, and stand like a regiment at attention.</p> + +<p>“Is the stuff prepared?” (“Sind die stoffe +parat?”) demands the chairman.</p> + +<p>“Sunt,” we answer, with one voice.</p> + +<p>“Ad exercitium Salamandri,” says the chairman, and we +are ready.</p> + +<p>“Eins!” We rub our glasses with a circular motion +on the table.</p> + +<p>“Zwei!” Again the glasses growl; also at “Drei!”</p> + +<p>“Drink!” (“Bibite!”)</p> + +<p>And with mechanical unison every glass is emptied and held on high.</p> + +<p>“Eins!” says the chairman. The foot of every empty +glass twirls upon the table, producing a sound as of the dragging back +of a stony beach by a receding wave.</p> + +<p>“Zwei!” The roll swells and sinks again.</p> + +<p>“Drei!” The glasses strike the table with a single +crash, and we are in our seats again.</p> + +<p>The sport at the Kneipe is for two students to insult each other +(in play, of course), and to then challenge each other to a drinking +duel. An umpire is appointed, two huge glasses are filled, and +the men sit opposite each other with their hands upon the handles, all +eyes fixed upon them. The umpire gives the word to go, and in +an instant the beer is gurgling down their throats. The man who +bangs his perfectly finished glass upon the table first is victor.</p> + +<p>Strangers who are going through a Kneipe, and who wish to do the +thing in German style, will do well, before commencing proceedings, +to pin their name and address upon their coats. The German student +is courtesy itself, and whatever his own state may be, he will see to +it that, by some means or another, his guest gets safely home before +the morning. But, of course, he cannot be expected to remember +addresses.</p> + +<p>A story was told me of three guests to a Berlin Kneipe which might +have had tragic results. The strangers determined to do the thing +thoroughly. They explained their intention, and were applauded, +and each proceeded to write his address upon his card, and pin it to +the tablecloth in front of him. That was the mistake they made. +They should, as I have advised, have pinned it carefully to their coats. +A man may change his place at a table, quite unconsciously he may come +out the other side of it; but wherever he goes he takes his coat with +him.</p> + +<p>Some time in the small hours, the chairman suggested that to make +things more comfortable for those still upright, all the gentlemen unable +to keep their heads off the table should be sent home. Among those +to whom the proceedings had become uninteresting were the three Englishmen. +It was decided to put them into a cab in charge of a comparatively speaking +sober student, and return them. Had they retained their original +seats throughout the evening all would have been well; but, unfortunately, +they had gone walking about, and which gentleman belonged to which card +nobody knew—least of all the guests themselves. In the then +state of general cheerfulness, this did not to anybody appear to much +matter. There were three gentlemen and three addresses. +I suppose the idea was that even if a mistake were made, the parties +could be sorted out in the morning. Anyhow, the three gentlemen +were put into a cab, the comparatively speaking sober student took the +three cards in his hand, and the party started amid the cheers and good +wishes of the company.</p> + +<p>There is this advantage about German beer: it does not make a man +drunk as the word drunk is understood in England. There is nothing +objectionable about him; he is simply tired. He does not want +to talk; he wants to be let alone, to go to sleep; it does not matter +where—anywhere.</p> + +<p>The conductor of the party stopped his cab at the nearest address. +He took out his worst case; it was a natural instinct to get rid of +that first. He and the cabman carried it upstairs, and rang the +bell of the Pension. A sleepy porter answered it. They carried +their burden in, and looked for a place to drop it. A bedroom +door happened to be open; the room was empty; could anything be better?—they +took it in there. They relieved it of such things as came off +easily, and laid it in the bed. This done, both men, pleased with +themselves, returned to the cab.</p> + +<p>At the next address they stopped again. This time, in answer +to their summons, a lady appeared, dressed in a tea gown, with a book +in her hand. The German student looked at the top one of two cards +remaining in his hand, and enquired if he had the pleasure of addressing +Frau Y. It happened that he had, though so far as any pleasure +was concerned that appeared to be entirely on his side. He explained +to Frau Y. that the gentleman at that moment asleep against the wall +was her husband. The reunion moved her to no enthusiasm; she simply +opened the bedroom door, and then walked away. The cabman and +the student took him in, and laid him on the bed. They did not +trouble to undress him, they were feeling tired! They did not +see the lady of the house again, and retired therefore without adieus.</p> + +<p>The last card was that of a bachelor stopping at an hotel. +They took their last man, therefore, to that hotel, passed him over +to the night porter, and left him.</p> + +<p>To return to the address at which the first delivery was made, what +had happened there was this. Some eight hours previously had said +Mr. X. to Mrs. X.: “I think I told you, my dear, that I had an +invitation for this evening to what, I believe, is called a Kneipe?”</p> + +<p>“You did mention something of the sort,” replied Mrs. +X. “What is a Kneipe?”</p> + +<p>“Well, it’s a sort of bachelor party, my dear, where +the students meet to sing and talk and—and smoke, and all that +sort of thing, you know.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, well, I hope you will enjoy yourself!” said Mrs. +X., who was a nice woman and sensible.</p> + +<p>“It will be interesting,” observed Mr. X. “I +have often had a curiosity to see one. I may,” continued +Mr. X.,—“I mean it is possible, that I may be home a little +late.”</p> + +<p>“What do you call late?” asked Mrs. X.</p> + +<p>“It is somewhat difficult to say,” returned Mr. X. +“You see these students, they are a wild lot, and when they get +together—And then, I believe, a good many toasts are drunk. +I don’t know how it will affect me. If I can see an opportunity +I shall come away early, that is if I can do so without giving offence; +but if not—”</p> + +<p>Said Mrs. X., who, as I remarked before, was a sensible woman: “You +had better get the people here to lend you a latchkey. I shall +sleep with Dolly, and then you won’t disturb me whatever time +it may be.”</p> + +<p>“I think that an excellent idea of yours,” agreed Mr. +X. “I should hate disturbing you. I shall just come +in quietly, and slip into bed.”</p> + +<p>Some time in the middle of the night, or maybe towards the early +morning, Dolly, who was Mrs. X.’s sister, sat up in bed and listened.</p> + +<p>“Jenny,” said Dolly, “are you awake?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, dear,” answered Mrs. X. “It’s +all right. You go to sleep again.”</p> + +<p>“But whatever is it?” asked Dolly. “Do you +think it’s fire?”</p> + +<p>“I expect,” replied Mrs. X., “that it’s Percy. +Very possibly he has stumbled over something in the dark. Don’t +you worry, dear; you go to sleep.”</p> + +<p>But so soon as Dolly had dozed off again, Mrs. X., who was a good +wife, thought she would steal off softly and see to it that Percy was +all right. So, putting on a dressing-gown and slippers, she crept +along the passage and into her own room. To awake the gentleman +on the bed would have required an earthquake. She lit a candle +and stole over to the bedside.</p> + +<p>It was not Percy; it was not anyone like Percy. She felt it +was not the man that ever could have been her husband, under any circumstances. +In his present condition her sentiment towards him was that of positive +dislike. Her only desire was to get rid of him.</p> + +<p>But something there was about him which seemed familiar to her. +She went nearer, and took a closer view. Then she remembered. +Surely it was Mr. Y., a gentleman at whose flat she and Percy had dined +the day they first arrived in Berlin.</p> + +<p>But what was he doing here? She put the candle on the table, +and taking her head between her hands sat down to think. The explanation +of the thing came to her with a rush. It was with this Mr. Y. +that Percy had gone to the Kneipe. A mistake had been made. +Mr. Y. had been brought back to Percy’s address. Percy at +this very moment—</p> + +<p>The terrible possibilities of the situation swam before her. +Returning to Dolly’s room, she dressed herself hastily, and silently +crept downstairs. Finding, fortunately, a passing night-cab, she +drove to the address of Mrs. Y. Telling the man to wait, she flew +upstairs and rang persistently at the bell. It was opened as before +by Mrs. Y., still in her tea-gown, and with her book still in her hand.</p> + +<p>“Mrs. X.!” exclaimed Mrs. Y. “Whatever brings +you here?”</p> + +<p>“My husband!” was all poor Mrs. X. could think to say +at the moment, “is he here?”</p> + +<p>“Mrs. X.,” returned Mrs. Y., drawing herself up to her +full height, “how dare you?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, please don’t misunderstand me!” pleaded Mrs. +X. “It’s all a terrible mistake. They must have +brought poor Percy here instead of to our place, I’m sure they +must. Do please look and see.”</p> + +<p>“My dear,” said Mrs. Y., who was a much older woman, +and more motherly, “don’t excite yourself. They brought +him here about half an hour ago, and, to tell you the truth, I never +looked at him. He is in here. I don’t think they troubled +to take off even his boots. If you keep cool, we will get him +downstairs and home without a soul beyond ourselves being any the wiser.”</p> + +<p>Indeed, Mrs. Y. seemed quite eager to help Mrs. X.</p> + +<p>She pushed open the door, and Mrs. X, went in. The next moment +she came out with a white, scared face.</p> + +<p>“It isn’t Percy,” she said. “Whatever +am I to do?”</p> + +<p>“I wish you wouldn’t make these mistakes,” said +Mrs. Y., moving to enter the room herself.</p> + +<p>Mrs. X. stopped her. “And it isn’t your husband +either.”</p> + +<p>“Nonsense,” said Mrs. Y.</p> + +<p>“It isn’t really,” persisted Mrs. X. “I +know, because I have just left him, asleep on Percy’s bed.”</p> + +<p>“What’s he doing there?” thundered Mrs. Y.</p> + +<p>“They brought him there, and put him there,” explained +Mrs. X., beginning to cry. “That’s what made me think +Percy must be here.”</p> + +<p>The two women stood and looked at one another; and there was silence +for awhile, broken only by the snoring of the gentleman the other side +of the half-open door.</p> + +<p>“Then who is that, in there?” demanded Mrs. Y., who was +the first to recover herself.</p> + +<p>“I don’t know,” answered Mrs. X., “I have +never seen him before. Do you think it is anybody you know?”</p> + +<p>But Mrs. Y. only banged to the door.</p> + +<p>“What are we to do?” said Mrs. X.</p> + +<p>“I know what <i>I</i> am going to do,” said Mrs. Y. +“I’m coming back with you to fetch my husband.”</p> + +<p>“He’s very sleepy,” explained Mrs. X.</p> + +<p>“I’ve known him to be that before,” replied Mrs. +Y., as she fastened on her cloak.</p> + +<p>“But where’s Percy?” sobbed poor little Mrs. X., +as they descended the stairs together.</p> + +<p>“That my dear,” said Mrs. Y., “will be a question +for you to ask <i>him</i>.”</p> + +<p>“If they go about making mistakes like this,” said Mrs. +X., “it is impossible to say what they may not have done with +him.”</p> + +<p>“We will make enquiries in the morning, my dear,” said +Mrs. Y., consolingly.</p> + +<p>“I think these Kneipes are disgraceful affairs,” said +Mrs. X. “I shall never let Percy go to another, never—so +long as I live.”</p> + +<p>“My dear,” remarked Mrs. Y., “if you know your +duty, he will never want to.” And rumour has it that he +never did.</p> + +<p>But, as I have said, the mistake was in pinning the card to the tablecloth +instead of to the coat. And error in this world is always severely +punished.</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>CHAPTER XIV</h2> + +<p class="letter"> +Which is serious: as becomes a parting chapter—The German from +the Anglo-Saxon’s point of view—Providence in buttons and +a helmet—Paradise of the helpless idiot—German conscience: +its aggressiveness—How they hang in Germany, very possibly—What +happens to good Germans when they die?—The military instinct: +is it all-sufficient?—The German as a shopkeeper—How he +supports life—The New Woman, here as everywhere—What can +be said against the Germans, as a people—The Bummel is over and +done.</p> + +<p>“Anybody could rule this country,” said George; “<i>I</i> +could rule it.”</p> + +<p>We were seated in the garden of the Kaiser Hof at Bonn, looking down +upon the Rhine. It was the last evening of our Bummel; the early +morning train would be the beginning of the end.</p> + +<p>“I should write down all I wanted the people to do on a piece +of paper,” continued George; “get a good firm to print off +so many copies, have them posted about the towns and villages; and the +thing would be done.”</p> + +<p>In the placid, docile German of to-day, whose only ambition appears +to be to pay his taxes, and do what he is told to do by those whom it +has pleased Providence to place in authority over him, it is difficult, +one must confess, to detect any trace of his wild ancestor, to whom +individual liberty was as the breath of his nostrils; who appointed +his magistrates to advise, but retained the right of execution for the +tribe; who followed his chief, but would have scorned to obey him. +In Germany to-day one hears a good deal concerning Socialism, but it +is a Socialism that would only be despotism under another name. +Individualism makes no appeal to the German voter. He is willing, +nay, anxious, to be controlled and regulated in all things. He +disputes, not government, but the form of it. The policeman is +to him a religion, and, one feels, will always remain so. In England +we regard our man in blue as a harmless necessity. By the average +citizen he is employed chiefly as a signpost, though in busy quarters +of the town he is considered useful for taking old ladies across the +road. Beyond feeling thankful to him for these services, I doubt +if we take much thought of him. In Germany, on the other hand, +he is worshipped as a little god and loved as a guardian angel. +To the German child he is a combination of Santa Claus and the Bogie +Man. All good things come from him: Spielplätze to play in, +furnished with swings and giant-strides, sand heaps to fight around, +swimming baths, and fairs. All misbehaviour is punished by him. +It is the hope of every well-meaning German boy and girl to please the +police. To be smiled at by a policeman makes it conceited. +A German child that has been patted on the head by a policeman is not +fit to live with; its self-importance is unbearable.</p> + +<p>The German citizen is a soldier, and the policeman is his officer. +The policeman directs him where in the street to walk, and how fast +to walk. At the end of each bridge stands a policeman to tell +the German how to cross it. Were there no policeman there, he +would probably sit down and wait till the river had passed by. +At the railway station the policeman locks him up in the waiting-room, +where he can do no harm to himself. When the proper time arrives, +he fetches him out and hands him over to the guard of the train, who +is only a policeman in another uniform. The guard tells him where +to sit in the train, and when to get out, and sees that he does get +out. In Germany you take no responsibility upon yourself whatever. +Everything is done for you, and done well. You are not supposed +to look after yourself; you are not blamed for being incapable of looking +after yourself; it is the duty of the German policeman to look after +you. That you may be a helpless idiot does not excuse him should +anything happen to you. Wherever you are and whatever you are +doing you are in his charge, and he takes care of you—good care +of you; there is no denying this.</p> + +<p>If you lose yourself, he finds you; and if you lose anything belonging +to you, he recovers it for you. If you don’t know what you +want, he tells you. If you want anything that is good for you +to have, he gets it for you. Private lawyers are not needed in +Germany. If you want to buy or sell a house or field, the State +makes out the conveyance. If you have been swindled, the State +takes up the case for you. The State marries you, insures you, +will even gamble with you for a trifle.</p> + +<p>“You get yourself born,” says the German Government to +the German citizen, “we do the rest. Indoors and out of +doors, in sickness and in health, in pleasure and in work, we will tell +you what to do, and we will see to it that you do it. Don’t +you worry yourself about anything.”</p> + +<p>And the German doesn’t. Where there is no policeman to +be found, he wanders about till he comes to a police notice posted on +a wall. This he reads; then he goes and does what it says.</p> + +<p>I remember in one German town—I forget which; it is immaterial; +the incident could have happened in any—noticing an open gate +leading to a garden in which a concert was being given. There +was nothing to prevent anyone who chose from walking through that gate, +and thus gaining admittance to the concert without paying. In +fact, of the two gates quarter of a mile apart it was the more convenient. +Yet of the crowds that passed, not one attempted to enter by that gate. +They plodded steadily on under a blazing sun to the other gate, at which +a man stood to collect the entrance money. I have seen German +youngsters stand longingly by the margin of a lonely sheet of ice. +They could have skated on that ice for hours, and nobody have been the +wiser. The crowd and the police were at the other end, more than +half a mile away, and round the corner. Nothing stopped their +going on but the knowledge that they ought not. Things such as +these make one pause to seriously wonder whether the Teuton be a member +of the sinful human family or not. Is it not possible that these +placid, gentle folk may in reality be angels, come down to earth for +the sake of a glass of beer, which, as they must know, can only in Germany +be obtained worth the drinking?</p> + +<p>In Germany the country roads are lined with fruit trees. There +is no voice to stay man or boy from picking and eating the fruit, except +conscience. In England such a state of things would cause public +indignation. Children would die of cholera by the hundred. +The medical profession would be worked off its legs trying to cope with +the natural results of over-indulgence in sour apples and unripe walnuts. +Public opinion would demand that these fruit trees should be fenced +about, and thus rendered harmless. Fruit growers, to save themselves +the expense of walls and palings, would not be allowed in this manner +to spread sickness and death throughout the community.</p> + +<p>But in Germany a boy will walk for miles down a lonely road, hedged +with fruit trees, to buy a pennyworth of pears in the village at the +other end. To pass these unprotected fruit trees, drooping under +their burden of ripe fruit, strikes the Anglo-Saxon mind as a wicked +waste of opportunity, a flouting of the blessed gifts of Providence.</p> + +<p>I do not know if it be so, but from what I have observed of the German +character I should not be surprised to hear that when a man in Germany +is condemned to death he is given a piece of rope, and told to go and +hang himself. It would save the State much trouble and expense, +and I can see that German criminal taking that piece of rope home with +him, reading up carefully the police instructions, and proceeding to +carry them out in his own back kitchen.</p> + +<p>The Germans are a good people. On the whole, the best people +perhaps in the world; an amiable, unselfish, kindly people. I +am positive that the vast majority of them go to Heaven. Indeed, +comparing them with the other Christian nations of the earth, one is +forced to the conclusion that Heaven will be chiefly of German manufacture. +But I cannot understand how they get there. That the soul of any +single individual German has sufficient initiative to fly up by itself +and knock at St. Peter’s door, I cannot believe. My own +opinion is that they are taken there in small companies, and passed +in under the charge of a dead policeman.</p> + +<p>Carlyle said of the Prussians, and it is true of the whole German +nation, that one of their chief virtues was their power of being drilled. +Of the Germans you might say they are a people who will go anywhere, +and do anything, they are told. Drill him for the work and send +him out to Africa or Asia under charge of somebody in uniform, and he +is bound to make an excellent colonist, facing difficulties as he would +face the devil himself, if ordered. But it is not easy to conceive +of him as a pioneer. Left to run himself, one feels he would soon +fade away and die, not from any lack of intelligence, but from sheer +want of presumption.</p> + +<p>The German has so long been the soldier of Europe, that the military +instinct has entered into his blood. The military virtues he possesses +in abundance; but he also suffers from the drawbacks of the military +training. It was told me of a German servant, lately released +from the barracks, that he was instructed by his master to deliver a +letter to a certain house, and to wait there for the answer. The +hours passed by, and the man did not return. His master, anxious +and surprised, followed. He found the man where he had been sent, +the answer in his hand. He was waiting for further orders. +The story sounds exaggerated, but personally I can credit it.</p> + +<p>The curious thing is that the same man, who as an individual is as +helpless as a child, becomes, the moment he puts on the uniform, an +intelligent being, capable of responsibility and initiative. The +German can rule others, and be ruled by others, but he cannot rule himself. +The cure would appear to be to train every German for an officer, and +then put him under himself. It is certain he would order himself +about with discretion and judgment, and see to it that he himself obeyed +himself with smartness and precision.</p> + +<p>For the direction of German character into these channels, the schools, +of course, are chiefly responsible. Their everlasting teaching +is duty. It is a fine ideal for any people; but before buckling +to it, one would wish to have a clear understanding as to what this +“duty” is. The German idea of it would appear to be: +“blind obedience to everything in buttons.” It is +the antithesis of the Anglo-Saxon scheme; but as both the Anglo-Saxon +and the Teuton are prospering, there must be good in both methods. +Hitherto, the German has had the blessed fortune to be exceptionally +well governed; if this continue, it will go well with him. When +his troubles will begin will be when by any chance something goes wrong +with the governing machine. But maybe his method has the advantage +of producing a continuous supply of good governors; it would certainly +seem so.</p> + +<p>As a trader, I am inclined to think the German will, unless his temperament +considerably change, remain always a long way behind his Anglo-Saxon +competitor; and this by reason of his virtues. To him life is +something more important than a mere race for wealth. A country +that closes its banks and post-offices for two hours in the middle of +the day, while it goes home and enjoys a comfortable meal in the bosom +of its family, with, perhaps, forty winks by way of dessert, cannot +hope, and possibly has no wish, to compete with a people that takes +its meals standing, and sleeps with a telephone over its bed. +In Germany there is not, at all events as yet, sufficient distinction +between the classes to make the struggle for position the life and death +affair it is in England. Beyond the landed aristocracy, whose +boundaries are impregnable, grade hardly counts. Frau Professor +and Frau Candlestickmaker meet at the Weekly Kaffee-Klatsch and exchange +scandal on terms of mutual equality. The livery-stable keeper +and the doctor hobnob together at their favourite beer hall. The +wealthy master builder, when he prepares his roomy waggon for an excursion +into the country, invites his foreman and his tailor to join him with +their families. Each brings his share of drink and provisions, +and returning home they sing in chorus the same songs. So long +as this state of things endures, a man is not induced to sacrifice the +best years of his life to win a fortune for his dotage. His tastes, +and, more to the point still, his wife’s, remain inexpensive. +He likes to see his flat or villa furnished with much red plush upholstery +and a profusion of gilt and lacquer. But that is his idea; and +maybe it is in no worse taste than is a mixture of bastard Elizabethan +with imitation Louis XV, the whole lit by electric light, and smothered +with photographs. Possibly, he will have his outer walls painted +by the local artist: a sanguinary battle, a good deal interfered with +by the front door, taking place below, while Bismarck, as an angel, +flutters vaguely about the bedroom windows. But for his Old Masters +he is quite content to go to the public galleries; and “the Celebrity +at Home” not having as yet taken its place amongst the institutions +of the Fatherland, he is not impelled to waste his money turning his +house into an old curiosity shop.</p> + +<p>The German is a gourmand. There are still English farmers who, +while telling you that farming spells starvation, enjoy their seven +solid meals a day. Once a year there comes a week’s feast +throughout Russia, during which many deaths occur from the over-eating +of pancakes; but this is a religious festival, and an exception. +Taking him all round, the German as a trencherman stands pre-eminent +among the nations of the earth. He rises early, and while dressing +tosses off a few cups of coffee, together with half a dozen hot buttered +rolls. But it is not until ten o’clock that he sits down +to anything that can properly be called a meal. At one or half-past +takes place his chief dinner. Of this he makes a business, sitting +at it for a couple of hours. At four o’clock he goes to +the café, and eats cakes and drinks chocolate. The evening +he devotes to eating generally—not a set meal, or rarely, but +a series of snacks,—a bottle of beer and a Belegete-semmel or +two at seven, say; another bottle of beer and an Aufschnitt at the theatre +between the acts; a small bottle of white wine and a Spiegeleier before +going home; then a piece of cheese or sausage, washed down by more beer, +previous to turning in for the night.</p> + +<p>But he is no gourmet. French cooks and French prices are not +the rule at his restaurant. His beer or his inexpensive native +white wine he prefers to the most costly clarets or champagnes. +And, indeed, it is well for him he does; for one is inclined to think +that every time a French grower sells a bottle of wine to a German hotel- +or shop-keeper, Sedan is rankling in his mind. It is a foolish +revenge, seeing that it is not the German who as a rule drinks it; the +punishment falls upon some innocent travelling Englishman. Maybe, +however, the French dealer remembers also Waterloo, and feels that in +any event he scores.</p> + +<p>In Germany expensive entertainments are neither offered nor expected. +Everything throughout the Fatherland is homely and friendly. The +German has no costly sports to pay for, no showy establishment to maintain, +no purse-proud circle to dress for. His chief pleasure, a seat +at the opera or concert, can be had for a few marks; and his wife and +daughters walk there in home-made dresses, with shawls over their heads. +Indeed, throughout the country the absence of all ostentation is to +English eyes quite refreshing. Private carriages are few and far +between, and even the droschke is made use of only when the quicker +and cleaner electric car is not available.</p> + +<p>By such means the German retains his independence. The shopkeeper +in Germany does not fawn upon his customers. I accompanied an +English lady once on a shopping excursion in Munich. She had been +accustomed to shopping in London and New York, and she grumbled at everything +the man showed her. It was not that she was really dissatisfied; +this was her method. She explained that she could get most things +cheaper and better elsewhere; not that she really thought she could, +merely she held it good for the shopkeeper to say this. She told +him that his stock lacked taste—she did not mean to be offensive; +as I have explained, it was her method;—that there was no variety +about it; that it was not up to date; that it was commonplace; that +it looked as if it would not wear. He did not argue with her; +he did not contradict her. He put the things back into their respective +boxes, replaced the boxes on their respective shelves, walked into the +little parlour behind the shop, and closed the door.</p> + +<p>“Isn’t he ever coming back?” asked the lady, after +a couple of minutes had elapsed.</p> + +<p>Her tone did not imply a question, so much as an exclamation of mere +impatience.</p> + +<p>“I doubt it,” I replied.</p> + +<p>“Why not?” she asked, much astonished.</p> + +<p>“I expect,” I answered, “you have bored him. +In all probability he is at this moment behind that door smoking a pipe +and reading the paper.”</p> + +<p>“What an extraordinary shopkeeper!” said my friend, as +she gathered her parcels together and indignantly walked out.</p> + +<p>“It is their way,” I explained. “There are +the goods; if you want them, you can have them. If you do not +want them, they would almost rather that you did not come and talk about +them.”</p> + +<p>On another occasion I listened in the smoke-room of a German hotel +to a small Englishman telling a tale which, had I been in his place, +I should have kept to myself.</p> + +<p>“It doesn’t do,” said the little Englishman, “to +try and beat a German down. They don’t seem to understand +it. I saw a first edition of <i>The Robbers</i> in a shop in the +Georg Platz. I went in and asked the price. It was a rum +old chap behind the counter. He said: ‘Twenty-five marks,’ +and went on reading. I told him I had seen a better copy only +a few days before for twenty—one talks like that when one is bargaining; +it is understood. He asked me ‘Where?’ I told +him in a shop at Leipsig. He suggested my returning there and +getting it; he did not seem to care whether I bought the book or whether +I didn’t. I said:</p> + +<p>“‘What’s the least you will take for it?’</p> + +<p>“‘I have told you once,’ he answered; ‘twenty-five +marks.’ He was an irritable old chap.</p> + +<p>“I said: ‘It’s not worth it.’</p> + +<p>“‘I never said it was, did I?’ he snapped.</p> + +<p>“I said: ‘I’ll give you ten marks for it.’ +I thought, maybe, he would end by taking twenty.</p> + +<p>“He rose. I took it he was coming round the counter to +get the book out. Instead, he came straight up to me. He +was a biggish sort of man. He took me by the two shoulders, walked +me out into the street, and closed the door behind me with a bang. +I was never more surprised in all my life.”</p> + +<p>“Maybe the book was worth twenty-five marks,” I suggested.</p> + +<p>“Of course it was,” he replied; “well worth it. +But what a notion of business!”</p> + +<p>If anything change the German character, it will be the German woman. +She herself is changing rapidly—advancing, as we call it. +Ten years ago no German woman caring for her reputation, hoping for +a husband, would have dared to ride a bicycle: to-day they spin about +the country in their thousands. The old folks shake their heads +at them; but the young men, I notice, overtake them and ride beside +them. Not long ago it was considered unwomanly in Germany for +a lady to be able to do the outside edge. Her proper skating attitude +was thought to be that of clinging limpness to some male relative. +Now she practises eights in a corner by herself, until some young man +comes along to help her. She plays tennis, and, from a point of +safety, I have even noticed her driving a dog-cart.</p> + +<p>Brilliantly educated she always has been. At eighteen she speaks +two or three languages, and has forgotten more than the average Englishwoman +has ever read. Hitherto, this education has been utterly useless +to her. On marriage she has retired into the kitchen, and made +haste to clear her brain of everything else, in order to leave room +for bad cooking. But suppose it begins to dawn upon her that a +woman need not sacrifice her whole existence to household drudgery any +more than a man need make himself nothing else than a business machine. +Suppose she develop an ambition to take part in the social and national +life. Then the influence of such a partner, healthy in body and +therefore vigorous in mind, is bound to be both lasting and far-reaching.</p> + +<p>For it must be borne in mind that the German man is exceptionally +sentimental, and most easily influenced by his women folk. It +is said of him, he is the best of lovers, the worst of husbands. +This has been the woman’s fault. Once married, the German +woman has done more than put romance behind her; she has taken a carpet-beater +and driven it out of the house. As a girl, she never understood +dressing; as a wife, she takes off such clothes even as she had, and +proceeds to wrap herself up in any odd articles she may happen to find +about the house; at all events, this is the impression she produces. +The figure that might often be that of a Juno, the complexion that would +sometimes do credit to a healthy angel, she proceeds of malice and intent +to spoil. She sells her birth-right of admiration and devotion +for a mess of sweets. Every afternoon you may see her at the café, +loading herself with rich cream-covered cakes, washed down by copious +draughts of chocolate. In a short time she becomes fat, pasty, +placid, and utterly uninteresting.</p> + +<p>When the German woman gives up her afternoon coffee and her evening +beer, takes sufficient exercise to retain her shape, and continues to +read after marriage something else than the cookery-book, the German +Government will find it has a new and unknown force to deal with. +And everywhere throughout Germany one is confronted by unmistakable +signs that the old German Frauen are giving place to the newer Damen.</p> + +<p>Concerning what will then happen one feels curious. For the +German nation is still young, and its maturity is of importance to the +world. They are a good people, a lovable people, who should help +much to make the world better.</p> + +<p>The worst that can be said against them is that they have their failings. +They themselves do not know this; they consider themselves perfect, +which is foolish of them. They even go so far as to think themselves +superior to the Anglo-Saxon: this is incomprehensible. One feels +they must be pretending.</p> + +<p>“They have their points,” said George; “but their +tobacco is a national sin. I’m going to bed.”</p> + +<p>We rose, and leaning over the low stone parapet, watched the dancing +lights upon the soft, dark river.</p> + +<p>“It has been a pleasant Bummel, on the whole,” said Harris; +“I shall be glad to get back, and yet I am sorry it is over, if +you understand me.”</p> + +<p>“What is a ‘Bummel’?” said George. +“How would you translate it?”</p> + +<p>“A ‘Bummel’,” I explained, “I should +describe as a journey, long or short, without an end; the only thing +regulating it being the necessity of getting back within a given time +to the point from which one started. Sometimes it is through busy +streets, and sometimes through the fields and lanes; sometimes we can +be spared for a few hours, and sometimes for a few days. But long +or short, but here or there, our thoughts are ever on the running of +the sand. We nod and smile to many as we pass; with some we stop +and talk awhile; and with a few we walk a little way. We have +been much interested, and often a little tired. But on the whole +we have had a pleasant time, and are sorry when ’tis over.”</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div style='text-align:center'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THREE MEN ON THE BUMMEL ***</div> +</body> + +</html> |