th Schultheiss. These were
rousing and satisfying little happenings.

Free public lectures had also been a source of enjoyment to the
Buchers during the long frigid fortnights. Of the five senses, Gard
reflected, hearing is the only good one the Germans possess. They
hear, absorb through hearing, to better advantage than other races.
They close their eyes and drink in seriously. Naturally enough comes
about the universality of their music and lectures.

Of these public dissertations a course on the Union between Greek
Philosophy and Greek Poetry was especially raved over in Villa Elsa.
Gard attended one of these evenings, inspired by the instructional
ardors of Frau and Fraeulein and Ernst. The example of little Ernst,
avid of such intellectual pleasures at his tender age, ever
impressed Gard anew. He thought of American lads in comparison.

The German professor, as is well known, occupies a much more potent
and exalted position in Germany than the American professor in
America. He is considered a reliable fount of wisdom. He speaks with
sure authority. He is an oracle, permanent and sounding afar.

On this occasion, precisely at eight o'clock, in a majestic
university hall, Kirtley saw this particular grand and popular
orator ascend the pulpit. He was in full dress--white waistcoat,
white tie, white kids. He was large, shapely, commanding. The women
were "at his feet." He stood there solemnly as the clock was
striking, and slowly removed his gloves and inserted them under his
coat tail. And for exactly an hour there was a remarkable flow of
formidable, finished periods, without a note, without a hesitation.
Gard really felt there would never be anything else to say about
Beauty, so profound, so complete, so final, seemed this survey of
the topic.

At the close the audience flocked to the speaker as if to an
Olympian victor. Frau Bucher was ecstatic, covering him with her
compliments while insisting on waiting for a propitious moment to
introduce Herr Kirtley. But as Gard remained there at the lecturer's
elbow, he met with another disillusion about German professors. This
locally famous man, so correctly dressed to outward view, wore no
shirt collar under his beard. His neck and ears showed no signs of
recent ablutions and were bushy with unkempt hairs. And he exhaled a
rank odor compounded of perspiration and dirt.

Gard almost choked, being crowded into close contact. Could he ever
get fully accustomed to Germ