ans. What _I_ like is a first-class
compartment all to myself, and no horrid foreigners. Especially Germans.
They're bursting with self-satisfaction--have such an exaggerated belief
in their "land" and their "folk." And when they come to England, they do
nothing but find fault with us. If people aren't satisfied with the
countries they travel in, they'd better stop at home--that's _my_
opinion. Nasty pigs of Germans! The very sight of them sickens me. Oh, I
don't mind if they _do_ understand me, child. They all learn English
nowadays; it helps them in trade--that's why they're driving us out of
all the markets. But it _must_ be good for them to learn once in a way
what other people really think of them--civilised people, I mean; not
Germans. They're a set of barbarians.'

We reached Schlangenbad alive, though I sometimes doubted it: for my old
lady did her boisterous best to rouse some peppery German officer into
cutting our throats incontinently by the way; and when we got there, we
took up our abode in the nicest hotel in the village. Lady Georgina had
engaged the best front room on the first floor, with a charming view
across the pine-clad valley; but I must do her the justice to say that
she took the second best for me, and that she treated me in every way
like the guest she delighted to honour. My refusal to accept her twenty
guineas made her anxious to pay it back to me within the terms of our
agreement. She described me to everybody as a young friend who was
travelling with her, and never gave any one the slightest hint of my
being a paid companion. Our arrangement was that I was to have two
guineas for the week, besides my travelling expenses, board, and
lodging.

On our first morning at Schlangenbad, Lady Georgina sallied forth, very
much overdressed, and in a youthful hat, to use the waters. They are
valued chiefly for the complexion, I learned; I wondered then why Lady
Georgina came there--for she hadn't any; but they are also recommended
for nervous irritability, and as Lady Georgina had visited the place
almost every summer for fifteen years, it opened before one's mind an
appalling vista of what her temper might have been if she had _not_ gone
to Schlangenbad. The hot springs are used in the form of a bath. '_You_
don't need them, my dear,' Lady Georgina said to me, with a
good-humoured smile; and I will own that I did not, for nature has
gifted me with a tolerable cuticle. But I like when at Rome to do a