santly twisting
circumstances foiled the pleasure and pride due to me. From the Club I
bent my steps to Temple's district, and met in the street young Eckart
vom Hof, my champion and second on a memorable occasion, fresh upon
London, and looking very Germanic in this drab forest of our city
people. He could hardly speak of Deutschland for enthusiasm at the sight
of the moving masses. His object in coming to England, he assured me
honestly, was to study certain editions of Tibullus in the British
Museum. When he deigned to speak of Sarkeld, it was to say that Prince
Hermann was frequently there. I gave him no chance to be sly, though he
pushed for it, at a question of the Princess Ottilia's health.

The funeral pace of the block of cabs and omnibuses engrossed his
attention. Suddenly the Englishman afforded him an example of the
reserve of impetuosity we may contain. I had seen my aunt Dorothy in a
middle line of cabs coming from the City, and was darting in a twinkling
among wheels and shafts and nodding cab-horse noses to take her hand and
know the meaning of her presence in London. She had family business to
do: she said no more. I mentioned that I had checked my father for a day
or two. She appeared grateful. Her anxiety was extreme that she might
not miss the return train, so I relinquished her hand, commanded the
cabman to hasten, and turned to rescue Eckart--too young and faithful
a collegian not to follow his friend, though it were into the lion's
den-from a terrific entanglement of horseflesh and vehicles brawled over
by a splendid collision of tongues. Secure on the pavement again,
Eckart humbly acknowledged that the English tongue could come out upon
occasions. I did my best to amuse him.

Whether it amused him to see me take my seat in the House of Commons,
and hear a debate in a foreign language, I cannot say; but the only
pleasure of which I was conscious at that period lay in the thought that
he or his father, Baron vom Hof, might some day relate the circumstance
at Prince Ernest's table, and fix in Ottilia's mind the recognition of
my having tried to perform my part of the contract. Beggared myself, and
knowing Prince Hermann to be in Sarkeld, all I hoped for was to show
her I had followed the path she traced. My state was lower: besides
misfortune I now found myself exalted only to feel my profound
insignificance.

'The standard for the House is a man's ability to do things,' said
Charles Etherell, my