t at our feet, and when we
tried to escape it we fell over what had arrived. Porters were rushing
to and fro with trunks, just as disturbed ants do with eggs, but in
this case it was the German passengers who felt disturbed. They were
not used to such ways. When they had to duck under a rope to reach the
waiting train they grew quite angry, and said they did not think much
of the British Empire. But there was worse to come for us all.
Breakfast on board had been early and a fog had delayed our arrival.
We were all hungry and streamed into the refreshment room. We filled
it.

"What is there to eat?" said one.

The young woman with the hauteur and detachment of her calling did not
speak, but just glanced at a glass dish under a glass cover. There
were two stale looking ham sandwiches.

"Well," says my Englishman, when I tell him this true story--"we are
not a greedy nation."

"But how about the trunks that were not under their right letters?" I
ask.

"Who in his senses wants to find trunks under letters?" says he. "The
proper place for trunks is the end of the platform. Then you can tear
out of the train and find yours first and get off quickly. When you
are all dragooned and drilled an ass comes off as well as anyone else.
You place a premium on stupidity."

"But that is an advantage to the ass," I say; "and in a civilised
State why should the ass not have as good a chance as anyone else?"

The argument that ensues is familiar, exhausting, and interminable.
"An ass is an ass wherever he lives," says someone at last; and
everyone is delighted to have a proposition put forward to which he
can honestly agree.

CHAPTER XXIV

PEASANT LIFE

The peasant proprietors of Southern Germany are a comfortable,
prosperous class. "A rich peasant" begins your comic story as often as
"a rich Jew." The peasants own their farms and a bit of forest, as
well as a vineyard or a hop garden. They never pretend to be anything
but peasants; but when they can afford it they like to have a son who
is a doctor, a schoolmaster, or a pastor. Unless you have special
opportunities you can only watch peasant life from outside in Germany,
for you could not stay in a Bauernhaus as you would in a farmhouse in
England. At least, you could not live with the family. In some of the
summer resorts the peasants make money by furnishing bedrooms and
letting them to _Herrschaften_, but the _Herrschaften_ have to get
their meals at the nearest