as you could find, but
the Twinklers were the real thing, they said,--real, unadulterated,
arrogant Junkers, which is why they wouldn't talk to anybody; for no
Junker, said the German ladies, thinks anybody good enough to be talked
to except another Junker. The German ladies themselves had by sheer luck
not been born Junkers. They had missed it very narrowly, but they had
missed it, for which they were very thankful seeing what believers they
were, under the affectionate manipulation of their husbands, in
democracy; but they came from the part of Germany where Junkers most
abound, and knew the sort of thing well.

It seemed to Mr. Twist, who caught scraps of conversation as he came
and went, that in the cabin the Twinklers must have alienated sympathy.
They had. They had done more; they had got themselves actively disliked.

From the first moment when Anna-Rose had dared to peep into their
shrouded bunks the ladies had been prejudiced, and this prejudice had
later flared up into a great and justified dislike. The ladies, to begin
with, hadn't known that they were von Twinklers, but had supposed them
mere Twinklers, and the von, as every German knows, makes all the
difference, especially in the case of Twinklers, who, without it, were a
race, the ladies knew, of small shopkeepers, laundresses and postmen in
the Westphalian district, but with it were one of the oldest families in
Prussia; known to all Germans; possessed of a name ensuring subservience
wherever it went.

In this stage of preliminary ignorance the ladies had treated the two
apparently ordinary Twinklers with the severity their conduct, age, and
obvious want of means deserved; and when, goaded by their questionings,
the smaller and more active Twinkler had let out her von at them much as
one lets loose a dog when one is alone and weak against the attacks of
an enemy, instead of falling in harmoniously with the natural change of
attitude of the ladies, which became immediately perfectly polite and
conciliatory, as well as motherly in its interest and curiosity, the two
young Junkers went dumb. They would have nothing to do with the most
motherly questioning. And just in proportion as the German ladies found
themselves full of eager milk of kindness, only asking to be permitted
to nourish, so did they find themselves subsequently, after a day or
two of such uncloaked repugnance to it, left with quantities of it
useless on their hands and all going sour.

F