ppist Monastery--Details of life
there--The Arian heresy--Silkworm culture--Tendencies of French to
complicate details--Some examples--Cicadas in London.

CHAPTER VI

Brunswick--Its beauty--High level of culture--The Brunswick
Theatre--Its excellence--Gas vs. Electricity--Primitive theatre
toilets--Operatic stars in private life--Some operas unknown in
London--Dramatic incidents in them--Levasseur's parody of
"Robert"--Some curious details about operas--Two fiery old
pan-Germans--Influence of the teaching profession on modern
Germany--The "French and English Clubs"--A meeting of the "English
Club" Some reflections about English reluctance to learn foreign
tongues--Mental attitude of non-Prussians in 1875--Concerning various
beers--A German sportsman--The silent, quinine-loving youth--The Harz
Mountains--A "Kettle-drive" for hares--Dialects of German--The odious
"Kaffee-Klatch"--Universal gossip--Hamburg's overpowering
hospitality--Hamburg's attitude towards Britain--The city itself--Trip
to British Heligoland--The island--Some peculiarities--Migrating
birds--Sir Fitzhardinge Maxse--Lady Maxse--The Heligoland
Theatre--Winter in Heligoland

CHAPTER VII

Some London beauties of the "seventies"--Great ladies--The Victorian
girl--Votaries of the Gaiety Theatre Two witty ladies--Two clever girls
and mock-Shakespeare--The family who talked Johnsonian
English--Old-fashioned tricks of pronunciation--Practical jokes--Lord
Charles Beresford and the old Club-member--The shoeless
legislator--Travellers' palms--The tree that spouted wine--Ceylon's
spicy breezes--Some reflections--Decline of public interest in
Parliament--Parliamentary giants--Gladstone, John Bright, and
Chamberlain--Gladstone's last speech--His resignation--W.H. Smith--The
Assistant Whips--Sir William Hart-Dyke--Weary hours at Westminster--A
Pseudo-Ingoldsbean Lay

CHAPTER VIII

The Foreign Office--The new Private Secretary--A Cabinet
key--Concerning theatricals--Some surnames which have passed into
everyday use--Theatricals at Petrograd--A mock-opera--The family from
Runcorn--An embarrassing predicament--Administering the oath--Secret
Service--Popular errors--Legitimate employment of information--The
Phoenix Park murders--I sanction an arrest--The innocent victim--The
execution of the murderers of Alexander II.--The jarring military
band--Black Magic--Sir Charles Wyke--Some of his experiences--The
seance at the Pantheon--Sir Charles' experiments on m