ent than they look, they can get
better information than this old fool of mine is giving them from the
guide book. Who wants to know how high a steeple is? You don't remember
it the next five minutes when you are told, and if you do it is because
you have got nothing else in your head. He just tires me with his talk.
Why doesn't he hurry up, and let us all get home to lunch?"

Upon reflection, I am not sure that wall-eyed old brute had not sense on
its side. Anyhow, I know there have been occasions, with a guide, when I
would have been glad of its interference.

But one is apt to "sin one's mercies," as the Scotch say, and at the time
we cursed that horse instead of blessing it.

CHAPTER VII

George wonders--German love of order--"The Band of the Schwarzwald
Blackbirds will perform at seven"--The china dog--Its superiority over
all other dogs--The German and the solar system--A tidy country--The
mountain valley as it ought to be, according to the German idea--How the
waters come down in Germany--The scandal of Dresden--Harris gives an
entertainment--It is unappreciated--George and the aunt of him--George, a
cushion, and three damsels.

At a point between Berlin and Dresden, George, who had, for the last
quarter of an hour or so, been looking very attentively out of the
window, said:

"Why, in Germany, is it the custom to put the letter-box up a tree? Why
do they not fix it to the front door as we do? I should hate having to
climb up a tree to get my letters. Besides, it is not fair to the
postman. In addition to being most exhausting, the delivery of letters
must to a heavy man, on windy nights, be positively dangerous work. If
they will fix it to a tree, why not fix it lower down, why always among
the topmost branches? But, maybe, I am misjudging the country," he
continued, a new idea occurring to him. "Possibly the Germans, who are
in many matters ahead of us, have perfected a pigeon post. Even so, I
cannot help thinking they would have been wiser to train the birds, while
they were about it, to deliver the letters nearer the ground. Getting
your letters out of those boxes must be tricky work even to the average
middle-aged German."

I followed his gaze out of window. I said:

"Those are not letter-boxes, they are birds' nests. You must understand
this nation. The German loves birds, but he likes tidy birds. A bird
left to himself builds his nest just anywhere. It is not a pretty
ob