quite think _that_,' said Mrs. Harvey-Browne.

'Well, and what happened?' asked Brosy with smiling eyes.

'Well, they were naturally profoundly pessimistic, both of them. You
are, you know, if your diet----'

'Oh yes, yes indeed,' agreed Mrs. Harvey-Browne, with the conviction of
one who has been through it.

'They were absolutely sick of things. They loathed everything anybody
said or did. And they were disciples of Nietzsche.'

'Was that the cause or the effect of the excessive beer-drinking?' asked
Brosy.

'Oh, I can't _endure_ Nietzsche,' cried Mrs. Harvey-Browne. 'Don't ever
read him, Brosy. I saw some things he says about women--he is too
dreadful.'

'And one said to the other over their despairing potations: "Only those
can be considered truly happy who are destined never to be born."'

'There!' cried Mrs. Harvey-Browne. 'That is Nietzsche all over--_rank_
pessimism.'

'I never heard ranker,' said Brosy smiling.

'And the other thought it over, and then said drearily: "But to how few
falls that happy lot."'

There was a pause. Brosy was laughing behind his teacup. His mother, on
the contrary, looked solemn, and gazed at me thoughtfully. 'There is a
great want of simple faith about Germans,' she said. 'The bishop thinks
it so sad. A story like that would quite upset him. He has been very
anxious lest Brosy--our only child, dear Frau X., so you may imagine how
precious--should become tainted by it.'

'I dislike beer,' said Brosy.

'That man this morning, for instance--did you ever hear anything like
it? He was just the type of man, quite apart from his insolence, that
most grieves the bishop.'

'Really?' I said; and wondered respectfully at the amount of grieving
the bishop got through.

'An educated man, I suppose--did he not say he was a schoolmaster? A
teacher of the young, without a vestige himself of the simple faith he
ought to inculcate. For if he had had a vestige, would it not have
prevented his launching into an irreverent conversation with a lady who
was not only a stranger, but the wife of a prelate of the Church of
England?'

'He couldn't know that, mother,' said Brosy; 'and from what you told me
it wasn't a conversation he launched into but a monologue. And I must
beg your pardon,' he added, turning to me with a smile, 'for the absurd
mistake we made. It was the guide's fault.'

'Oh yes, my dear Frau X., you must forgive me--it was really too silly
of me--I might have known--I