r thing, she can't make herself look
young and beautiful, whatever she does, and Frau Rittmeister Bernstorf
was laughing at her the other day, and at the high heels and at the
stuffing the _Schneiderin_ round the corner puts into her gowns to
cover the angular bones! She would look much more respectable,' said
I, 'if she would brush her scanty grey locks back, and smooth them
with pomatum as I do, and wear a black lace _Muetze_ over them, instead
of making herself the laughing-stock of Schleswig.' And away I walked.
And the Professor ate no supper that night, and next day he left for
his _Ferienausflug_, and never called to say good-bye to Fraeulein
Meyer; and so I put the extinguisher on that little candle just as its
flame was beginning to burn up, and--why! here we are at Mainz."

And this is what I heard, and how I was entertained, in the
"elektrische Bahn" on my little expedition from Wiesbaden to Mainz. I
reflected, as I saw the Haushaelterin get down heavily with all the
deliberation of her sixty-five and a half years, that feline amenities
are much the same in Germany as in England; and I felt sorry for poor
Fraeulein Meyer, who might have given up her small vanities and made
pancakes and _Apfelkuchen_ for the Professor quite as well in the end
as the Haushaelterin.

The cathedral of Mainz was, of course, the object of our expedition.
It dominates the city from afar, with its wonderful towers and
pinnacles, making of Mainz (a commonplace city enough) a thing of
beauty. From the shores of the Rhine we crossed a wide street planted
with trees and lined on each hand with modern German houses of pinkish
stone (covered with heavy sculpture and breaking out into countless
balconies and bay windows), and soon found ourselves in the
market-place. And here, indeed, one felt oneself in the Germany of
bygone days. Instead of pseudo-classic buildings, heavy with
meaningless ornamentation, we found beautiful old timber-framed
houses, with deep eaves and wood carvings. On one of these I read:

Zum Kurfuerstlichen
Wappen.
Erneuert in Jahr
des Heils
1899.

It was evidently a Gasthaus of considerable antiquity, and had been
carefully restored. Close by a Brobdingnagian finger lured the unwary
to where it pointed--a low doorway above which was inscribed the
legend: "_Hier essen