Massa Jordan's wid
a sack of melons. Yes, sar; an' Massa Jordan he wuz very 'greeable, an'
axed me for ter come in."

"Yes, sar, very 'greeable man is Massa Jordan. An' dar we sat a talking
an' a talking--"

"Very likely. What we want to know is what you were doing in the
Deacon's poultry-yard?"

"Yes, sar, dat's what I'se cumming to. It wuz ver' late 'fore I left
Massa Jordan's, an' den I sez ter mysel', sez I, now yer jest step out
with yer best leg foremost, Ulysses, case yer gets into trouble wid de
ole woman. Ver' talkative woman she is, sar, very--"

"Yes, never mind her; there are other people very talkative in this town
besides your wife. Deacon Abraham's house is half a mile out of your way
home from Mr. Jordan's. How did you get there?"

"Dat's what I'm a-gwine ter explain, sar."

"I am glad of that. And how do you propose to do it?"

"Well, I'se thinkin', sar, I must ha' digressed."

I take it we digressed a little.

At first, from some reason or other, Hanover strikes you as an
uninteresting town, but it grows upon you. It is in reality two towns; a
place of broad, modern, handsome streets and tasteful gardens; side by
side with a sixteenth-century town, where old timbered houses overhang
the narrow lanes; where through low archways one catches glimpses of
galleried courtyards, once often thronged, no doubt, with troops of
horse, or blocked with lumbering coach and six, waiting its rich merchant
owner, and his fat placid Frau, but where now children and chickens
scuttle at their will; while over the carved balconies hang dingy clothes
a-drying.

A singularly English atmosphere hovers over Hanover, especially on
Sundays, when its shuttered shops and clanging bells give to it the
suggestion of a sunnier London. Nor was this British Sunday atmosphere
apparent only to myself, else I might have attributed it to imagination;
even George felt it. Harris and I, returning from a short stroll with
our cigars after lunch on the Sunday afternoon, found him peacefully
slumbering in the smoke-room's easiest chair.

"After all," said Harris, "there is something about the British Sunday
that appeals to the man with English blood in his veins. I should be
sorry to see it altogether done away with, let the new generation say
what it will."

And taking one each end of the ample settee, we kept George company.

To Hanover one should go, they say, to learn the best German. The
disadvantage is that