B. and I very nearly had an accident one warm night, owing to our ignorance of this custom. Each time after we had swallowed the quart, we left the pot, standing before us with the cover up, and each time it was, in consequence, taken away, and brought back to us, brimming full again. After about the sixth time, we gently remonstrated.
“This is very kind of you, my good girl,” B. said, “but really I don’t think we can. I don’t think we ought to. You must not go on doing this sort of thing. We will drink this one now that you have brought it, but we really must insist on its being the last.”
After about the tenth time we expostulated still more strongly.
“Now, you know what I told you four quarts ago!” remarked B., severely. “This can’t go on for ever. Something serious will be happening. We are not used to your German school of drinking. We are only foreigners. In our own country we are considered rather swagger at this elbow-raising business, and for the credit of old England we have done our best. But now there must be an end to it. I simply decline to drink any more. No, do not press me. Not even another gallon!”
“But you both sit there with both your mugs open,” replies the girl in an injured tone.
“What do you mean, ‘we sit with our mugs open’?” asks B. “Can’t we have our mugs open if we like?”
“Ah, yes,” she explains pathetically; “but then I think you want more beer. Gentlemen always open their mugs when they want them filled with beer.”
We kept our mugs shut after that.
MONDAY, JUNE 9TH
A Long Chapter, but happily the Last.—The Pilgrims’ Return.—A Deserted Town.—Heidelberg.—The Common, or Bed, Sheet, Considered as a Towel.—B. Grapples with a Continental Time Table.—An Untractable Train.—A Quick Run.—Trains that Start from Nowhere.—Trains that Arrive at Nowhere.—Trains that Don’t Do Anything.—B. Goes Mad.—Railway Travelling in Germany.—B. is Taken Prisoner.—His Fortitude.—Advantages of Ignorance.—First Impressions of Germany and of the Germans.
We are at Ostend. Our pilgrimage has ended. We sail for Dover in three hours’ time. The wind seems rather fresh, but they say that it will drop towards the evening. I hope they are not deceiving us.
We are disappointed with Ostend. We thought that Ostend would be gay and crowded. We thought that there would be bands and theatres and concerts, and busy table-d’hôtes, and lively sands, and thronged parades, and pretty girls at Ostend.
