be sorry for it, and thought how its
mother would grieve, upon which I took it back to the spot where I had
found it and returned to the institution as fast as I could, but said
nothing at first about my "stupidity," for I was ashamed of it.

Excursions into the country were the most delightful pleasures of the
summer. The shorter ones took us to the suburbs of the capital, and
sometimes to Charlottenburg, where several of our acquaintances lived,
and our guardian, Alexander Mendelssohn, had a country house with a
beautiful garden, where there was never any lack of the owner's children
and grandchildren for playmates. Sometimes we were allowed to go there
with other boys. We then had a few Groschen to get something at a
restaurant, and were generally brought home in a Kremser carriage. These
carriages were to be found in a long row by the wall outside of the
Brandenburg Gate or at the Palace in Charlottenburg or by the "Turkish
tent"--for at that time there were no omnibuses running to the decidedly
rural neighbouring city. Even when the carriages were arranged to carry
ten or twelve persons there was but one horse, and it was these
Rosinantes which probably gave rise to the following rhyme:

"A Spandau wind,
A child of Berlin,
A Charlottenburg horse,
Are all not worth a pin."

The Berlin children were, on the whole, better than their reputation, but
not so the Charlottenburg horses. The Kremser carriages were named from
the man who owned most of them. The business was carried on by an
association. A single individual rarely hired one; either a family took
possession of it, or you got in and waited patiently till enough persons
had collected for the driver to think it worth while to take his whip and
say, "Well, get up!"

But this same Herr Kremser also had nice carriages for excursions into
the country, drawn by two or four horses, as might be required. For the
four-horse Kremser chariots there was even a driver in jockey costume,
who rode the saddle-horse.

Other excursions took us to the beautiful Humboldt's Tegel, to the Muggel
and Schlachten Lakes, to Franzosisch Buchholz, Treptow, and Stralau. We
were, unfortunately, never allowed to attend the celebrated fishing
festival at Stralau.

But the crowning expedition of all was on our mother's birthday, either
to the Pichelsbergen, wooded hills mirrored in ponds where fish abounded,
or to the Pfaueninsel at Potsdam.

Th