gardener's training--into an evil form of this
sort."

"Our friend Lothair," said Theodore, "does not get out of his moods so
very quickly, that we all know; as also that when he is in them he sees
spectres, and fights with them sturdily until he is dead-beat, and
obliged to acknowledge that they _were_ nothing but spectres, the
creations of his own brain. How is it possible, Lothair, that Ottmar's
harmless and very innocent suggestion should at once set you thinking
of clubs, and the Philistinism inherent in them? All the same, you have
brought to my memory a very amusing remembrance of our former days. I
dare say you remember the time when we first left the Residency and
went to the little town of P----? The customs of society made it
incumbent on us to join the club which the so-called 'Upper ten' of the
place belonged to. We received due notification, in a solemn document,
worded in the most formal juridical style, that, after the due
formalities, we had been admitted as members; and this notification was
accompanied by a great book, of some fifteen to twenty sheets of paper,
handsomely bound, containing the Club Rules. They had been drawn up by
an old legal luminary, exactly in the style of the Prussian Municipal
Code, all divided into titles and paragraphs, and were the most
entertaining reading it is possible to conceive. For instance, one
title was superscribed, 'Concerning Women and Children, and their
Rights, and Privileges,' in which nothing more or less was sanctioned
than that the wives and daughters of the members had the privilege of
coming to tea within the precincts of the club every Thursday and
Sunday evening, and might even dance there some five or six times
during the winter. Concerning children the law was still more
accurately and critically enunciated, the jurist having handled this
subject with even more than his usual care, jealously distinguishing
between children under age, children of age, and children under
parental tutelage. Those under age were further sub-divided, according
to their moral qualities, into well-behaved, and ill-behaved, and the
latter were unconditionally debarred from admission, 'good behaviour'
being a fundamental principle of the club constitution. The next title
was the noteworthy one, 'Concerning Dogs, Cats, and other irrational
creatures,' and laid down that nobody might bring into the club any
dangerous wild beast. So that, had any member taken to himself (for
exa