monk. "Is not
dat de Ole Grandt Man himself?" he asks, triumphantly. Second Briton
agrees "It's a wonderful likeness, reelly." His Companion admits
"They've got old GLADSTONE there to a _t_"--but adds that "come
to _that_, it might do for _either of_ 'em." "Lort BAGONSFELDT" is
opposite, but, as Sacristan observes, would be more like "if dey only
vas gif him a leedle gurl on de vorehead." Next we are taken to the
Retro-Choir and shown the "mosh gurious and peautiful bainting in
de ole Cathedrale. Schtand yust hier, Gentelmens, _now_ you see him.
Beoples say, 'Oh, yais, _ve_ know, yust a marble-garvings--a baw
releff!' I dell you, nodings of de kindt. All so flat as a biece
of vite baper--com close op. Vat you tink? Vonderful, hey?" Britons
deeply impressed by this and other wonders, and inform Sacristan that
their own Cathedrals "ain't _in_ it." "Look at the _value_ of the
things they've _got_ 'ere, you know," they say to me, clucking, and
then depart, after asking Sacristan the nearest way to the Zoo.

_At Table d'hote._--Fellow-countrymen to the fore; both my immediate
neighbours English, but neither shows any inclination to converse.
Rather glad of it; afternoon of Museums and Galleries instructive--but
exhausting. Usual Chatty Clergyman at end of table, talking Guide-book
intelligently; wife next him, ruminating in silence and dismally
contemplating artificial plant in a plated pot in front of her. It
_is_ a depressing object--but why look at it? Horror of two Sportsmen
opposite on being offered snipe. "Snipe _now_--Great Scott!" they
exclaim, "And ain't they _high_ too?" One helps himself to some, with
a sense that being on the Continent makes all the difference. But even
_his_ courage fails on being offered stewed apricots with it. Close
by a couple of Americans; a dry middle-aged man, and a talkative young
fellow who informs him he was at Harvard. Elder man listens to him
with a grim and wooden forbearance. "Ez fur languages," the younger
man is saying. "I'd undertake to learn any language inside of six
months. Fur enstance, I got up Trigonometry in two. You'll tell me
that _isn't_ a language, and that's so, but take _Latin_ now, I'd
learn Latin--to write _and_ speak--in a year, Italian I'd learn in a
fortnight--with constant _study_, you understand. Then there's German.
Well. I cann't _read_ German--not in their German text, I cann't, and
I don't _speak_ it with fluency, but I can ask my _way_ in it, and
order