d put on dry clothes, and hang my wet
garments round the stove, while the uproarious masons--terrible men for
beer and music--comforted me with unending joviality. They got into
their hands a book of German songs that dropped out of my knapsack, and
having appointed a reader, set him upon the table to declaim them.
Presently, another jolly mason cried out over a drinking song--declaimed
among the others in a loud monotonous bawl--"I know that song;" and
having hemmed and tuned his voice a little, broke out into music with
tremendous power. The example warmed the others; they began to look out
songs with choruses, and so continued singing to the praise of wine and
beauty out of my book, until they were warned home by the host. I
climbed a ladder to my bedroom, and slept well. The Grenadier was not an
expensive hotel, for in the morning when I paid my bill for bed and
breakfast, I found that the accommodation cost me fourpence-halfpenny.

Since it is my desire not to fatigue the reader of this uneventful
narrative, but simply to illustrate by a few notes drawn from my own
experience the life of a German workman on the tramp, I shall now pass
over a portion of the road between Hamburg and Berlin in silence. My way
lay through Schwerin; from Schoneberg to Schwerin is twenty-six English
miles, and we find it a long way. In reckoning distances, the Germans
count by "stunden"--_i.e._ hours--and two "stunden" make one German mile.
From experience, I should say that five miles English were about equal to
one mile German; but they vary considerably. Having spent a night in the
exceedingly neat city of Schwerin beside its pleasant waters, and under
the protection of the cannon in the antiquated castle overhead, I set out
for a walk of twenty miles onward to Ludwigslust. The road was a
pleasant one, firm and dry, with trim grass edgings and sylvan seats on
either side. The country itself was flat and dull, enlivened only now
and then by a fir plantation or a pretty village. Brother tramps passed
me from time to time with a cheerful salutation, and at three o'clock I
passed within the new brick walls of Ludwigslust; a town dignified as a
pleasure seat with a military garrison, a ducal palace, and an English
park.

The inn to which I went in Ludwigslust, was the house of call for
carpenters. The carpenters were there assembled in great force,
laughing, smoking, and enjoying their red wine, which may have come from
France,