r from an intimate
friend who was living in Germany--a friend whose name was Gordon Wright.
He had been spending the winter in Dresden, but his letter bore the date
of Baden-Baden. As it was not long, I may give it entire.

"I wish very much that you would come to this place. I think you have
been here before, so that you know how pretty it is, and how amusing. I
shall probably be here the rest of the summer. There are some people I
know and whom I want you to know. Be so good as to arrive. Then I will
thank you properly for your various Italian rhapsodies. I can't reply on
the same scale--I have n't the time. Do you know what I am doing? I am
making love. I find it a most absorbing occupation. That is literally
why I have not written to you before. I have been making love ever since
the last of May. It takes an immense amount of time, and everything else
has got terribly behindhand. I don't mean to say that the experiment
itself has gone on very fast; but I am trying to push it forward. I have
n't yet had time to test its success; but in this I want your help.
You know we great physicists never make an experiment without an
'assistant'--a humble individual who burns his fingers and stains his
clothes in the cause of science, but whose interest in the problem is
only indirect. I want you to be my assistant, and I will guarantee
that your burns and stains shall not be dangerous. She is an extremely
interesting girl, and I really want you to see her--I want to know what
you think of her. She wants to know you, too, for I have talked a good
deal about you. There you have it, if gratified vanity will help you on
the way. Seriously, this is a real request. I want your opinion, your
impression. I want to see how she will affect you. I don't say I ask
for your advice; that, of course, you will not undertake to give. But
I desire a definition, a characterization; you know you toss off those
things. I don't see why I should n't tell you all this--I have always
told you everything. I have never pretended to know anything about
women, but I have always supposed that you knew everything. You
certainly have always had the tone of that sort of omniscience. So come
here as soon as possible and let me see that you are not a humbug. She
's a very handsome girl."

Longueville was so much amused with this appeal that he very soon
started for Germany. In the reader, Gordon Wright's letter will,
perhaps, excite surprise rather than hilarit