erman old maids who
formed the rank-and-file of my fellow-boarders. There they sat--eight
comfortable Fraus who had missed their vocation; plentiful ladies,
bulging and surging in tightly stretched black silk bodices. They had
been cut out for such housewives as Harold Tillington had described, but
found themselves deprived of their natural sphere in life by the
unaccountable caprice of the men of their nation. Each was a model
Teutonic matron _manquee_. Each looked capable of frying Frankfort
sausages to a turn, and knitting woollen socks to a remote eternity. But
I sought in vain for one kindred soul among them. How horrified they
would have been, with their fat pudding-faces and big saucer-eyes, had I
boldly announced myself as an English adventuress!

I spent my first morning in laborious self-education at the Ariadneum
and the Staedel Gallery. I borrowed a catalogue. I wrestled with Van der
Weyden; I toiled like a galley-slave at Meister Wilhelm and Meister
Stephan. I have a confused recollection that I saw a number of stiff
mediaeval pictures, and an alabaster statue of the lady who smiled as she
rode on a tiger, taken at the beginning of that interesting episode. But
the remainder of the Institute has faded from my memory.

In the afternoon I consoled myself for my herculean efforts in the
direction of culture by going out for a bicycle ride on a hired machine,
to which end I decided to devote my pocket-money. You will, perhaps,
object here that my conduct was imprudent. To raise that objection is to
misunderstand the spirit of these artless adventures. I told you that I
set out to go round the world; but to go round the world does not
necessarily mean to circumnavigate it. My idea was to go round by easy
stages, seeing the world as I went as far as I got, and taking as little
heed as possible of the morrow. Most of my readers, no doubt, accept
that philosophy of life on Sundays only; on week-days they swallow the
usual contradictory economic platitudes about prudential forethought and
the horrid improvidence of the lower classes. For myself, I am not built
that way. I prefer to take life in a spirit of pure inquiry. I put on my
hat: I saunter where I choose, so far as circumstances permit; and I
wait to see what chance will bring me. My ideal is breeziness.

The hired bicycle was not a bad machine, as hired bicycles go; it jolted
one as little as you can expect from a common hack; it never stopped at
a Bier-Ga