Said the Traveller: “I suppose you are frightened of an invasion, too, eh? Oh, that’s good. I’ve been reading all about your English play in a newspaper. Did you see it?” “Yes.” I sat upright. “I assure you we are not afraid.” “Well, then, you ought to be,” said the Herr Rat. “You have got no army at all—a few little boys with their veins full of nicotine poisoning.” “Don’t be afraid,” Herr Hoffmann said. “We don’t want England. If we did we would have had her long ago. We really do not want you.” He waved his spoon airily, looking across at me as though I were a little child whom he would keep or dismiss as he pleased. “We certainly do not want Germany,” I said. “This morning I took a half bath. Then this afternoon I must take a knee bath and an arm bath,” volunteered the Herr Rat; “then I do my exercises for an hour, and my work is over. A glass of wine and a couple of rolls with some sardines—” They were handed cherry cake with whipped cream. “What is your husband’s favourite meat?” asked the Widow. “I really do not know,” I answered. “You really do not know? How long have you been married?” “Three years.” “But you cannot be in earnest! You would not have kept house as his wife for a week without knowing that fact.” “I really never asked him; he is not at all particular about his food.” A pause. They all looked at me, shaking their heads, their mouths full of cherry stones. “No wonder there is a repetition in England of that dreadful state of things in Paris,” said the Widow, folding her dinner napkin. “How can a woman expect to keep her husband if she does not know his favourite food after three years?” “Mahlzeit!” “Mahlzeit!” I closed the door after me. THE BARON “Who is he?” I said. “And why does he sit always alone, with his back to us, too?” “Ah!” whispered the Frau Oberregierungsrat, “he is a _Baron_.” She looked at me very solemnly, and yet with the slightest possible contempt—a “fancy-not-recognising-that-at-the-first-glance” expression. “But, poor soul, he cannot help it,” I said. “Surely that unfortunate fact ought not to debar him from the pleasures of intellectual intercourse.” If it had not been for her fork I think she would have crossed herself. “Surely you cannot understand. He is one of the First Barons.” More than a little unnerved, she turned and spoke to the Frau Doktor on her left. “My omelette is empty—_empty_,” she protested, “and this is the third I have tried!” I looked at the First of the Barons. He was eating salad—taking a whole lettuce leaf on his fork and absorbing it slowly, rabbit-wise—a fascinating process to watch. Small and slight, with scanty black hair and beard and yellow-toned complexion, he invariably wore black serge clothes, a rough linen shirt, black sandals, and the largest black-rimmed spectacles that I had ever seen. The Herr Oberlehrer, who sat opposite me, smiled benignantly.