ir duties and their offices as we do, but they
glory in it. We throw off our uniforms as soon as may be; we feel
hampered by them. This leads to a feeling on the part of the Germans
that we are too free and easy, and not respectful enough toward our
own dignity or toward theirs. We feel, on the other hand, that it is a
farce to go to the every-day markets of life, whether for daily food
or for daily social intercourse, with the bullion and certified checks
of our official dignity; we go rather with the small change that
jingles in all pockets alike, and is ready to be handed out for the
frequent and unimportant buying and selling of the day and hour. We
look upon this grallatory attitude toward life as artificial and
hampering, and prefer to walk among our neighbors as much as possible
upon our own feet.

I am not pretending to fix standards of etiquette. I can quite
understand that when we grab the hand of the German's wife and shake
it like a pump-handle instead of bowing over it; that when we nod
cheerfully to him in the street with a wave of the hand or a lifting
of a cane or umbrella instead of taking off our hat; that when we fail
to address both him and his lady with the title belonging to them, no
matter how commonplace that title, we shock his prejudices and his
code of good manners.

If there is a stranger, a lady, in the drawing-room before dinner the
German men line up in single file and ask to be presented to her. If
the lady is tall and handsome and the party a large one, it looks
almost like an ovation. If you go to dine at an officers' mess the men
think it their duty to come up and ask to be presented to you. They
wear their mourning bands on the forearm instead of the upperarm; they
wear their wedding-rings on the fourth finger of the right hand; many
of them wear rather more conspicuous jewelry than we consider to be in
good taste.

The sofa, too, plays a role in German households and offices for which
I have sought in vain for an explanation. Not even German archaeology
supplies a historical ancestry for this sofa cult. It is the place of
honor. If you go to tea you are enthroned on the sofa. Even if you go
to an office, say of the police, or of the manager of the city
slaughter-house, or of the hospital superintendent, you are manoeuvred
about till they get you on the sofa, generally behind a table. I soon
discovered that this was the seat of honor. Sofas have their place in
life, I admit. There