imple as it was unlooked for. And this was
what happened.

One day, soon after Gard's disillusioning call on Von Tielitz, he
was grubbing in his attic among the ninth century roots of the
future super-luxuriant Teuton forest, when he heard Tekla's
woodchopper feet pounding their way upstairs. A card was thrust in.
James Alexander Deming, Erie, Pa. Well, of all the world! The next
moment he was there in the room, talkative, airy, sunny, dressed
with the obvious American consciousness of having just left the
hands of his fashionable tailor and haberdasher. Every section of
his black hair and tiny black mustache was plastered down as always
in correct position.

Making himself right at home with his newly acquired
cosmopolitanism, Jim explained how he was already settled in
Dresden for the winter.

"You knew that the more I saw of this old Germany, the more I liked
it. My governor wrote me I could stay if I would try to learn
something and I thought of you. I said to myself, 'Kirtley is a
serious sort of chap. If I light down near him, it will be easier to
learn this confounded language they have got over here, and I will
be able to shine with it in Erie, Pay, and do the old folks proud.'

"So I've got a teacher and a grammar and also a dictionary so big I
can't find anything in it--all ready to loop the loop. But first, of
course, I must run out and see you and see how you are getting on,
swimming in beer. Nothing is too good for us Americans, you know, so
my room in the hotel is right by the royal palace where I can see
the Crown Prince with his sword fall off his horse every morning at
ten. Gad, won't it be something to talk about when I get back to
good old Pennsylwanee?"

Deming's "old man" was possessed of wealth derived from oil wells.
But although Jim's pockets had always been stuffed with money, he
had never been able to get through high school or enter college.
Hang it all, he didn't take to books like Kirtley and all such
intellectual boys. It was the fault of his dad and mam. They had
petted and spoiled him--an only child. It was too bad, but shucks,
he wasn't going to let it interfere with his happiness. So it was
money here and money there, and a host of friends who, like Gard,
could not help being fond of him.

Jim had seen the Kaiser and quaffed out of the largest hogshead on
the Rhine. He had been at a duel at Heidelberg where the chap with a
cut through his cheek asked for a mug of beer and blew