We were on our way from Basle to Heidelberg, I remember, and Mr. Malt was commenting sarcastically upon Swiss resources for naming towns as exemplified in "Neuhausen." "There\'s a lot about this country," said Mr. Malt, "that reminds you of the world as it appeared about the time you built it for yourself every day with blocks, and made it lively with animals out of your Noah\'s Ark. I can\'t say what it is, but that\'s a sample of it—\'New Houses!\' What a baby baa-lamb name for a town! It would settle the municipality in our part of the world—any railway would make a circuit of fifty miles to avoid it!"

Mr. Mafferton and I had paused in our conversation, and these remarks reached us in full. They gave him the opportunity of bending a sympathetic glance upon me and saying, "How graphic your countrymen are, Miss Wick." Cologne was only three days off, but Mr. Mafferton never departed from the proprieties in his form of address. He was in that respect quite the most docile and respectful person I have ever found it necessary to keep in suspense.

I said they were not all as pictorial as Mr. Malt, and noticed that his eye was wandering. It had wandered to Miss Callis, who was snubbing the Count, and looking wonderfully well. I don\'t know whether I have mentioned that she had blue eyes and black hair, but her occupation, of course, would be becoming to anybody.

"And for the matter of that your country-women, too," said Mr. Mafferton. "I am much gratified to have the opportunity of making the acquaintance of another of them in this unexpected way. I find your friend, Miss Callis, a charming creature."

She wasn\'t my friend, but the moment did not seem opportune for saying so.

"I saw you talking a good deal to her yesterday," I said.

Mr. Mafferton twisted his moustache with a look of guilty satisfaction which I found hard to bear. "Must I cry Peccavi?" he said. "You see you were so—er—preoccupied. You said you would rather hear about the growth of the Swiss Confederacy and its relation to the Helvetia of the Ancients another day."

"That was quite true," I said indignantly.

"I found Miss Callis anxious to be informed without delay," said Mr. Mafferton, with a slightly rebuking accent. "She has a very open mind," he went on musingly.

"Oh, wonderfully," I said.

"And a highly retentive memory. It seems she was shown over our place in Surrey last summer. She described it to me in the most perfect detail. She must be very observant."

"She\'s as observant as ever she can be," I remarked. "I expect she could describe you in the most perfect detail too, if she tried." I sweetened this with an exterior smile, but I felt extremely rude inside.

"Oh, I fear I could not flatter myself—but how interesting that would be! One has always had a desire to know the impression one makes as a whole, so to speak, upon a fresh and unsophisticated young intelligence like that."

"Well," I said, "there isn\'t any reason why you shouldn\'t find out at once." For the Count had melted away, and Miss Callis was not nearly so much occupied with her novel as she appeared to be.

Mr. Mafferton rose, and again stroked his moustache, with a quizzical disciplinary air.

"Oh woman, in your hours of ease
Uncertain, coy, and hard to please!"

He quoted. "You are a very whimsical young lady, but since you send me away I must abandon you."

"Thanks so much!" I said. "I mean—I have myself to blame, I know," and as Mr. Mafferton dropped into the seat opposite Miss Callis I saw Mrs. Portheris regard him austerely, as one for whom it was possible to make too much allowance.

In connection with Heidelberg I wish there were something authentic to say about Perkeo; but nobody would believe the quantity of wine he is supposed to have drunk in a day, which is the statement oftenest made about him, so it is of no consequence that I have forgotten the number of bottles. He isn\'t the patron saint of Heidelberg, because he only lived about a hundred and fifty years ago, and the first qualification for a patron saint is antiquity. As poppa says, there may be elderly gentlemen in Heidelberg now whose grandfathers have warned them against the personal habits of Perkeo from actual observation. Also we know that he was a court jester, and the pages of the Calendar, for some reason, are closed to persons in that walk of life. Judging by the evidences of his popularity that survive on all sides, Mr. Malt declared that he was probably worth more to the town in attracting residents and investors than half-a-dozen patron saints, and in this there may have been more truth than reverence. The Elector Charles Philip, whose court he jested for, certainly made no such mark upon his town and time as Perkeo did, and in that, perhaps, there is a moral for sovereigns, although the Senator advises me not to dwell upon it. At all events, one writes of Heidelberg but one thinks of Perkeo, as he swings from the sign-boards of the Haupt-Strasse, and stands on the lids of the beer mugs, and smiles from the extra-mural decoration of the wine shops, and lifts his glass, in eternally good wooden fellowship, beside the big Tun in the Castle cellar. There is a Hotel Perkeo, there must be Clubs Perkeo, probably a suburb and steamboats of the same name, and the local oath "Per Perkeo!" has a harmless sound, but nothing could be more binding in Heidelberg. Momma thought his example a very unfortunate one for a University town, but the rest of us were inclined to admire Perkeo as a self-made man and a success. As Dicky protested he had made the fullest use of the capacities Nature had given him, it was evident from his figure that he had even developed them, and what more profitable course should the German youth follow? He was cheerful everywhere—as the forerunner of the comic paper one supposes he had to be—but most impressive in his effigy by his master\'s wine vat, in the perpetual aroma............