urant-keeper adds to his advertisement: "Only
those with fair knowledge of English need apply."

Did the English-speaking races make it their rule to speak anything else
than English, the marvellous progress of the English tongue throughout
the world would stop. The English-speaking man stands amid the strangers
and jingles his gold.

"Here," cries, "is payment for all such as can speak English."

He it is who is the great educator. Theoretically we may scold him;
practically we should take our hats off to him. He is the missionary of
the English tongue.

CHAPTER XII

We are grieved at the earthly instincts of the German--A superb view, but
no restaurant--Continental opinion of the Englishman--That he does not
know enough to come in out of the rain--There comes a weary traveller
with a brick--The hurting of the dog--An undesirable family residence--A
fruitful region--A merry old soul comes up the hill--George, alarmed at
the lateness of the hour, hastens down the other side--Harris follows
him, to show him the way--I hate being alone, and follow
Harris--Pronunciation specially designed for use of foreigners.

A thing that vexes much the high-class Anglo-Saxon soul is the earthly
instinct prompting the German to fix a restaurant at the goal of every
excursion. On mountain summit, in fairy glen, on lonely pass, by
waterfall or winding stream, stands ever the busy Wirtschaft. How can
one rhapsodise over a view when surrounded by beer-stained tables? How
lose one's self in historical reverie amid the odour of roast veal and
spinach?

One day, on elevating thoughts intent, we climbed through tangled woods.

"And at the top," said Harris, bitterly, as we paused to breathe a space
and pull our belts a hole tighter, "there will be a gaudy restaurant,
where people will be guzzling beefsteaks and plum tarts and drinking
white wine."

"Do you think so?" said George.

"Sure to be," answered Harris; "you know their way. Not one grove will
they consent to dedicate to solitude and contemplation; not one height
will they leave to the lover of nature unpolluted by the gross and the
material."

"I calculate," I remarked, "that we shall be there a little before one
o'clock, provided we don't dawdle."

"The 'mittagstisch' will be just ready," groaned Harris, "with possibly
some of those little blue trout they catch about here. In Germany one
never seems able to get away from food and drink. It is maddening!"