t you enchanting
gingerbreads covered with hundreds and thousands. You thought him
rather funny, but you liked him, and if he wanted to smoke in bed why
not? You liked toys in bed yourself, and you would have taken the dog
there if only it had been allowed. Then you come back again to the
present hour, nearly all the years of your life later, and you are in
a railway carriage with six German householders who, like Mr.
Hoggenheimer, want cigars in and out of season.

"To-morrow," you say to your Englishman; "to-morrow I shall travel in
a _Nichtraucher_."

"But then I can't smoke," he says quite truly.

"We shall not travel together."

"But that is so unsociable."

"I would rather be unsociable than suffocated," you explain. "I have
suffered tortures to-day."

"Have you? But you always say you don't mind smoke."

"In reason. Seven cigars and one woman are not reasonable. Never
again will I travel with seven cigars."

"I thought we had a pleasant journey," says the Englishman
regretfully. "That little man next to you----"

"Mr. Hoggenheimer----?"

"Was that his name?--I couldn't understand all he said, but he had an
amusing face."

"A face can be misleading," you say; "that man bullies his wife."

"How do you know?"

"He told us so. He smokes before breakfast ... while he is dressing,
... and he has no dressing room...."

The Englishman looks calm.

"They do take one into their confidence," he remarks. "My neighbour
told me that he never could eat mayonnaise of salmon directly after
roast pork, because it gave him peculiar pains. I was afraid you'd
hear him describe his symptoms; but I believe you were asleep."

"No, I wasn't," you confess; "I heard it all, and I shut my eyes,
because I knew if I opened them he'd address himself to me. I shut
them when he began talking to you about your _Magen_ and what you
ought to do to give it tone. You seemed interested."

"It's quite an interesting subject," says the Englishman, who makes
friends with every German he meets. "He is not in the least like an
Englishman," they say to you cordially,--"he is so friendly and
amiable."

CHAPTER XII

HOUSEWIVES

"Frenchwomen are the best housewives in Europe," said a German lady
who knew most European countries well; "the next best are the English;
Germans come third." The lady speaking was one whose opinions were
always uttered with much charm, but _ex-cathedra_; so that you found
it impossible to disagree