ential to my comrade, yet familiar. There seemed to be
a renewing of some old tie that all were glad to reconnect. The young
men were actively demonstrative, the ladies wove in and out smilingly,
and my comrade in the midst beamed and grew voluble. Was it an
environment into which a quiet American college functionary could
properly fit? No due bounds were transgressed, but the atmosphere was
certainly very Bohemian. My prince _incognito_, was he perhaps
the Prince of Pilsen? While this happy mingling was going forward
I sat somewhat aloof, disconcerted that my cloud-capped towers and
gorgeous palaces were thus crumbling into comic opera. But now my
comrade approached me, aglow with social excitement, and, with a
franker look in his eyes than he had before shown, addressed me: "Mein
lieber Herr Professor, we have had a good ramble together and talked
about many things. You have been confidential with me, and hoped that
I would be with you. I have preferred to hold back, but now as we part
I ought to tell you who I am. I am the _premier danseur_ in the
ballet of the Royal Opera House in Berlin. Worn with the heavy work in
_Fantasca_, which we produced elaborately and which ran long,
I came down here when the season closed, for change and rest,
and so fell in with you. These young _Herren_ and _Damen_ are
the _coryphes_ and _figurantes_, who in Berlin or in other
cities have taken part with me in productions. Good people they are
and unsurpassed as a _corps de ballet_." We touched glasses,
shook hands, and I went my way leaving Comus with his rout, guileless,
I hope, as Milton's innocent "Lady," but such scales never fell from
her starry eyes as fell from mine. I knew well about _Fantasca_.
During my last weeks in Berlin it had been much talked about, a
splendid theatrical spectacle put on with consummate art, and
lavish expenditure. I had not seen it. Heredity from eight Puritan
generations reinforced by impecuniosity had kept me from that. But I
had heard of the wonderful visions of beauty and grace. My handsome
comrade of the Bavarian Alps had been at the centre of it all, the god
Apollo, or whatever glittering divinity or genius it was that swayed
the enchantments and led in the rhythmic circlings. Good cause indeed
I had had to admire his physical beauty. He had been picked out for
that no doubt among thousands, then painfully trained for years until
in figure and frame he was a model.

The gay pleasure garden in whi