losing function for the season, at any rate as far as we were
concerned. I don't in the least mean to say that we were the sort of
persons who aspired to mix "with royalty." We didn't; we hadn't any
claims; we were just "good people." But the Grand Duke was a pleasant,
affable sort of royalty, like the late King Edward VII, and it was
pleasant to hear him talk about the races and, very occasionally, as a
bonne bouche, about his nephew, the Emperor; or to have him pause for
a moment in his walk to ask after the progress of our cures or to be
benignantly interested in the amount of money we had put on Leloeffel's
hunter for the Frankfurt Welter Stakes.

But upon my word, I don't know how we put in our time. How does one put
in one's time? How is it possible to have achieved nine years and to
have nothing whatever to show for it? Nothing whatever, you understand.
Not so much as a bone penholder, carved to resemble a chessman and with
a hole in the top through which you could see four views of Nauheim.
And, as for experience, as for knowledge of one's fellow beings--nothing
either. Upon my word, I couldn't tell you offhand whether the lady who
sold the so expensive violets at the bottom of the road that leads to
the station, was cheating me or no; I can't say whether the porter who
carried our traps across the station at Leghorn was a thief or no when
he said that the regular tariff was a lira a parcel. The instances of
honesty that one comes across in this world are just as amazing as the
instances of dishonesty. After forty-five years of mixing with one's
kind, one ought to have acquired the habit of being able to know
something about one's fellow beings. But one doesn't.

I think the modern civilized habit--the modern English habit of taking
every one for granted--is a good deal to blame for this. I have observed
this matter long enough to know the queer, subtle thing that it is; to
know how the faculty, for what it is worth, never lets you down.

Mind, I am not saying that this is not the most desirable type of life
in the world; that it is not an almost unreasonably high standard. For
it is really nauseating, when you detest it, to have to eat every day
several slices of thin, tepid, pink india rubber, and it is disagreeable
to have to drink brandy when you would prefer to be cheered up by warm,
sweet Kuemmel. And it is nasty to have to take a cold bath in the morning
when what you want is really a hot one at night. A