se who transgress
the code of the _Kneipe_, but as far as I can make out they all
resolve themselves into drinking extra beer, singing extra songs, or
in really serious cases ceasing to be a Beer Person for whatever
length of time meets the offence. An Englishman who was present at
some of these gatherings in Heidelberg, told me that the etiquette was
most difficult for a foreigner to understand, and always a source of
anxiety to him all the evening. He was constantly invited to drink
with various members, and the German responsible for him explained
that he must not only respond to the invitation at the moment, but
return it at the right time: not too soon, because that would look
like shaking off an obligation, and not too late, because that would
look like forgetting it.

A _Kommers_ is a students' festival in which the professors and other
senior members of a university take part, and at which outsiders are
allowed to look on. The presiding students appear _in vollem Wichs_,
as we should say in their war paint, with sashes and rapiers. Young
and old together drink beer, sing songs, make speeches, and in honour
of one or the other they "rub a Salamander,"--a word which is said to
be a corruption of _Sauft alle mit einander_. This is a curious
ceremony and of great antiquity. When the glasses are filled, at the
word of command they are rubbed on the table; at the word of command
they are raised and emptied; and again at the word of command every
man rubs his glass on the table, the second time raises it and brings
it down with a crash. Anyone who brought his glass down a moment
earlier or later than the others would spoil the _Salamander_ and be
in disgrace. In _Ekkehardt_ Scheffel describes a similar ceremonial in
the tenth century. "The men seized their mugs," he says, "and rubbed
them three times in unison on the smooth rocks, producing a humming
noise, then they lifted them towards the sun and drank; each man set
down his mug at the same moment, so that it sounded like a single
stroke."

A _Kommers_ is not always a gay festival. It may be a memorial
ceremony in honour of some great man lately dead. Then speeches are
made in his praise, solemn and sacred music is sung, and the
Salamander, an impressive libation to the dead man's Manes, is drunk
with mournful effect.

In small university towns--and it must be remembered that there are
twenty-two universities in Germany--the students play a great part in
the soc