friend of mine. He said:

"You'll have a goodish time in the train old fellow. Are you used to
long railway journeys?"

I said:

"Well, I've travelled down from London into the very heart of Surrey by a
South Eastern express."

"Oh! that's a mere nothing, compared with what you've got before you
now," he answered. "Look here, I'll tell you a very good idea of how to
pass the time. You take a chessboard with you and a set of men. You'll
thank me for telling you that!"

George dropped in during the evening. He said:

"I'll tell you one thing you'll have to take with you, old man, and
that's a box of cigars and some tobacco."

He said that the German cigar--the better class of German cigar--was of
the brand that is technically known over here as the "Penny
Pickwick--Spring Crop;" and he thought that I should not have time,
during the short stay I contemplated making in the country, to acquire a
taste for its flavour.

My sister-in-law came in later on in the evening (she is a thoughtful
girl), and brought a box with her about the size of a tea-chest. She
said:

"Now, you slip that in your bag; you'll be glad of that. There's
everything there for making yourself a cup of tea."

She said that they did not understand tea in Germany, but that with that
I should be independent of them.

She opened the case, and explained its contents to me. It certainly was
a wonderfully complete arrangement. It contained a little caddy full of
tea, a little bottle of milk, a box of sugar, a bottle of methylated
spirit, a box of butter, and a tin of biscuits: also, a stove, a kettle,
a teapot, two cups, two saucers, two plates, two knives, and two spoons.
If there had only been a bed in it, one need not have bothered about
hotels at all.

Young Smith, the Secretary of our Photographic Club, called at nine to
ask me to take him a negative of the statue of the dying Gladiator in the
Munich Sculpture Gallery. I told him that I should be delighted to
oblige him, but that I did not intend to take my camera with me.

"Not take your camera!" he said. "You are going to Germany--to
Rhineland! You are going to pass through some of the most picturesque
scenery, and stay at some of the most ancient and famous towns of Europe,
and are going to leave your photographic apparatus behind you, and you
call yourself an artist!"

He said I should never regret a thing more in my life than going without
that camera.

I think it is