What we call the drawing-room used to be extremely chill and formal in Germany, but it has never been as hideously overloaded as English drawing-rooms belonging to people who do not know better. The "suite" of furniture covered with rep or brocade was everywhere, and the rep was frequently grass-green or magenta. There was invariably a sofa and a table in front of the sofa, and a rug or a small carpet under the table. Even in these days this arrangement prevails and must continue to do so while the sofa is considered the place of honour to which the hostess invites her leading guest. If you go to Germany in ignorance of the social importance attached to the sofa, you may blunder quite absurdly and sit down uninvited or when your age or your sex does not entitle you to a seat there. I was once present when an English girl innocently chose a corner of the sofa instead of a chair, though there were older women in the room. The hostess promptly and audibly told her to get up, for she knew it was not an affair to pass off as a joke. In England the question of precedence comes up chiefly at the dinner-table. The host and hostess must send the right people together and place them correctly too. In Germany you have to know as hostess who is to sit on the sofa; and your decision may be complicated by the absurd titles of your guests. For instance, one Frau Direktor may be the wife of a post office official who had a university education, and in Germany a university education counts; while another Frau Direktor, though she can afford better clothes, is merely the wife of the man who manages the factory in the next village. I have heard a story of a Frau Kreisrichter and a Frau Actuar that ended in a life-long feud, and it all turned on a _Kaffee Klatsch_ and the wrong woman on the sofa. It is not easy to know what to do about these ridiculous titles in Germany, because some people insist on them and some laugh at them as much as we do. I once asked a lady who had the best right to know, about using military titles instead of names: Herr Lieutenant, Herr Major, and so on. She was quite explicit. "_Mir ist es ein Greuel_," she said, and went on to tell me that it was only done as one might expect by people who did not know better, and of course by servants. All the same, it is well to be careful and study the individual case. I know of an American who addressed his professor as Professor Lachs. "Where are your manners, mein Herr?" said the professor in a fury, "I am Herr Professor Dr. Lachs to every student in this laboratory."