Argentine are woven in Glasgow.
Why is it that in these two great industrial centres no one seems to
have thought of establishing a special class in any of the numerous
schools and colleges for training youths as commercial travellers in
foreign countries? They would have, in addition to learning two or
three languages, to get used to making quick calculations in dollars
and cents, and in dollars of very varying values; they would also have
to learn to THINK quickly in weights and measures different to those to
which they had been accustomed. Why should British firms be compelled
to use German travellers, owing to the ineptitude of their own
countrymen? The power to learn is there; it is only the will that is
lacking, and in justice I must add, perhaps the necessary facilities.
People who do not mind taking trouble will always in the end get a pull
over people who hate all trouble. I think that our present King once
cried, "Buck up, England!" and his Majesty spoke true; very few things
can be done in this world without taking a little trouble.

To return, after this long digression, to the portly German middle-aged
business men who met weekly in Brunswick to improve their working
knowledge of French and English, I must candidly say that I never
detected the faintest shadow of animosity to Great Britain in them.
They were not Prussians--they were Hanoverians and Brunswickers. They
felt proud, I think, that the throne of Britain was then occupied by a
branch of their own ancient House of Guelph; they remembered the
hundred years' connection between Britain and Hanover; as business men
they acknowledged Britain's then unquestioned industrial supremacy, and
they recognised that men of their class enjoyed in England a position
and a power which was not accorded to them in Germany. Certainly they
never lost an opportunity of pointing out that Britain was neither a
military nor a fighting nation, and would never venture again to
conduct a campaign on the Continent. Recent events will show how
correct they were in their forecasts.

I liked the society of these shrewd, practical men, for from being so
much with the French judges, I had become accustomed to associating
with men double or treble my own age. There was nothing corresponding
to the gaiete francaise about them, though at times a ponderous
playfulness marked their lighter moments, and flashes of elephantine
jocularity enlivened the proceedings of the Club. I picked u