managed in a stout, slow English of his own. He said he had never
really spoken English with an English-speaking person before, or at all
since he studied it in school at Munich.

"I should be afraid to put my school-boy German against your English,"
March said, and, when he had understood, the other laughed for pleasure,
and reported the compliment to his wife in their own parlance. "You
Germans certainly beat us in languages."

"Oh, well," he retaliated, "the Americans beat us in some other things,"
and Mrs. March felt that this was but just; she would have liked to
mention a few, but not ungraciously; she and the German lady kept
smiling across the table, and trying detached vocables of their
respective tongues upon each other.

The Bavarian said he lived in Munich still, but was in Ansbach on an
affair of business; he asked March if he were not going to see the
manoeuvres somewhere. Till now the manoeuvres had merely been the
interesting background of their travel; but now, hearing that the
Emperor of Germany, the King of Saxony, the Regent of Bavaria, and the
King of Wurtemberg, the Grand-Dukes of Weimar and Baden, with visiting
potentates of all sorts, and innumerable lesser highhotes, foreign and
domestic, were to be present, Mrs. March resolved that they must go to
at least one of the reviews.

"If you go to Frankfort, you can see the King of Italy too," said the
Bavarian, but he owned that they probably could not get into a hotel
there, and he asked why they should not go to Wurzburg, where they could
see all the sovereigns except the King of Italy.

"Wurzburg? Wurzburg?" March queried of his wife. "Where did we hear of
that place?"

"Isn't it where Burnamy said Mr. Stoller had left his daughters at
school?"

"So it is! And is that on the way to the Rhine?" he asked the Bavarian.

"No, no! Wurzburg is on the Main, about five hours from Ansbach. And it
is a very interesting place. It is where the good wine comes from."

"Oh, yes," said March, and in their rooms his wife got out all their
guides and maps and began to inform herself and to inform him about
Wurzburg. But first she said it was very cold and he must order some
fire made in the tall German stove in their parlor. The maid who came
said "Gleich," but she did not come back, and about the time they were
getting furious at her neglect, they began getting warm. He put his hand
on the stove and found it hot; then he looked down for a door in the
s