y impels me to do. Prosit! Waes hael! Excuse my enthusiasm,
but you really know very little of the world or you would not take
things so calmly.

MIKE: My dear boy, rheumatism is a great sedative. You will learn by
and by. What are you making such a racket about?

GISSING: I have just learned that there is no such thing as free
will. I don't suppose you ever meditated on these things, you are
such an old stick-in-the-mud. But in my generation we scrutinize
everything.

MIKE: There is plenty of free will when you have learned to will the
right things. But there's no use willing yourself to destroy a motor
truck, because it can't be done. I have been young, and now am old,
but never have I seen an honest dog homeless, nor his pups begging
their bones. You will go to the devil if you don't learn to restrain
yourself.

GISSING: Last night there was a white cat in the sky. Yoicks,
yoicks! I ran thirty times round the house, yelling.

MIKE: Only the moon, nothing to bark about.

GISSING: You are very old, and I do not think you have ever really
felt the excitement of life. Excuse me, but have you seen me jump up
and pull the baby's clothes from the line? It is glorious fun.

MIKE: My good lad, I think life will deal hardly with you.

(_Exit, shaking his head._)

[Illustration]

AT THE GASTHOF ZUM OCHSEN

Looking over some several-days-old papers we observe that the truant
Mr. Bergdoll was discovered at Eberbach in Baden. Well, well, we
meditate, Herr Bergdoll is not wholly devoid of sense, if he is
rambling about that delicious valley of the Neckar. And if we were a
foreign correspondent, anxious to send home to the papers a complete
story of Herr Bergdoll's doings in those parts, we would know
exactly what to do. We would go straight to the excellent Herr
Leutz, proprietor of the _Gasthof zum Ochsen_ in Eberbach, and
listen to his prattle. Herr Leutz, whom we have never forgotten
(since we once spent a night in his inn, companioned by another
vagabond who is now Prof. W.L.G. Williams of Cornell University, so
our clients in Ithaca, if any, can check us up on this fact), is
the most innocently talkative person we have ever met.

A great many Americans have been to Alt Heidelberg, but not so many
have continued their exploration up the Neckarthal. You leave
Heidelberg by the Philosophers' Way (_Philosophenweg_), which looks
over the river and the hills--in this case, lit by a warm July