ink the book must have
been written by someone who suffered from corns. I could have gone to a
German shoemaker with this book and have talked the man's head off.

Then there were two pages of watery chatter "on meeting a friend in the
street"--"Good-morning, sir (or madam)." "I wish you a merry Christmas."
"How is your mother?" As if a man who hardly knew enough German to keep
body and soul together, would want to go about asking after the health of
a foreign person's mother.

There were also "conversations in the railway carriage," conversations
between travelling lunatics, apparently, and dialogues "during the
passage." "How do you feel now?" "Pretty well as yet; but I cannot say
how long it will last." "Oh, what waves! I now feel very unwell and
shall go below. Ask for a basin for me." Imagine a person who felt like
that wanting to know the German for it.

At the end of the book were German proverbs and "Idiomatic Phrases," by
which latter would appear to be meant in all languages, "phrases for the
use of idiots":--"A sparrow in the hand is better than a pigeon on the
roof."--"Time brings roses."--"The eagle does not catch flies."--"One
should not buy a cat in a sack,"--as if there were a large class of
consumers who habitually did purchase their cats in that way, thus
enabling unscrupulous dealers to palm off upon them an inferior cat, and
whom it was accordingly necessary to advise against the custom.

I skimmed through all this nonsense, but not a word could I discover
anywhere about a savoury omelette. Under the head of "Eating and
Drinking," I found a short vocabulary; but it was mainly concerned with
"raspberries" and "figs" and "medlars" (whatever they may be; I never
heard of them myself), and "chestnuts," and such like things that a man
hardly ever wants, even when he is in his own country. There was plenty
of oil and vinegar, and pepper and salt and mustard in the list, but
nothing to put them on. I could have had a hard-boiled egg, or a slice
of ham; but I did not want a hard-boiled egg, or a slice of ham. I
wanted a savoury omelette; and that was an article of diet that the
authors of this "Handy Little Guide," as they termed it in their preface,
had evidently never heard of.

Since my return home, I have, out of curiosity, obtained three or four
"English-German Dialogues" and "Conversation Books," intended to assist
the English traveller in his efforts to make himself understood by the