ecame a
handball buffeted about for the superior convenience of others. As
soon as he finally stiffened up and mentally told them to go to
perdition, the ingrowing troubles ceased with disciplined
promptness. A satisfactory relation resulted, and a hearty respect
for him in the household, he recognized, was measureably and
contentedly increased.

It was a little different phase of the old pagan German tribal habit
of considering the outsider as one from whom all should be got that
was possible, irrespective of return in kind or a decent proportion
of benefits. To hear in hard, to gouge, are toward the foreigner
procedures relied on by the Teuton nature as appropriate. In it
there is to be found little mutuality or respectfulness of feeling
that curbs, not to speak of the social spirit that restrains or
breeds a fine dignity of self. A show of weakness in any form,
however ideal or beautiful, makes small appeal. So far as any other
"tribe" is concerned, life to the German is at base a knock-down
argument. Misfortunes in an alien land do not awaken sympathy. They
are rather to be regarded as windfalls, as a result of which a
profit is to be grabbed or a steely hand of control inserted where
it does not belong.

CHAPTER XXV

FRITZI AND ANOTHER CONVERSATION

When Jim Deming returned he resumed sway over Villa Elsa, though
with less vehemence. The Buchers fell promptly again under his
spell, the duos were dropped, and Gard retired into the attic for
study, varying its monotony with sojourns in town to familiarize
himself with the personal peculiarities of the German multitude.

During the long break-up of winter, when the Teuton skies were
leaden, and it was neither cold enough nor hot enough to stay
comfortably in his room, owing to the Bucher economy of heat in this
mid-season, it was pleasanter to be stirring about _en ville_, and,
when weary of this, seeking the agreeable cosiness of the cafes with
their warmth of cooking and beverages that thawed one out. He
usually lunched in some one of these well-known resorts where he
became acquainted with the _personnel_ and frequenters. It was
Deming who introduced him to the inn where Fritzi served, whom Von
Tielitz and Messer had urged upon Gard's attentions. Jim had learned
of it through the former.

Imagine the tiniest of restaurants. It was scarcely large enough for
six small tables. The miniature kitchen immediately adjoined this
dining nook, so that these