Brunswick--Its beauty--High level of culture--The Brunswick Theatre--Its excellence--Gas vs. Electricity--Primitive theatre toilets--Operatic stars in private life--Some operas unknown in London--Dramatic incidents in them--Levasseur's parody of "Robert"--Some curious details about operas--Two fiery old pan-Germans--Influence of the teaching profession on modern Germany--The "French and English Clubs"--A meeting of the "English Club" Some reflections about English reluctance to learn foreign tongues--Mental attitude of non-Prussians in 1875--Concerning various beers--A German sportsman--The silent, quinine-loving youth--The Harz Mountains--A "Kettle-drive" for hares--Dialects of German--The odious "Kaffee-Klatch"--Universal gossip--Hamburg's overpowering hospitality--Hamburg's attitude towards Britain--The city itself--Trip to British Heligoland--The island--Some peculiarities--Migrating birds--Sir Fitzhardinge Maxse--Lady Maxse--The Heligoland Theatre--Winter in Heligoland CHAPTER VII Some London beauties of the "seventies"--Great ladies--The Victorian girl--Votaries of the Gaiety Theatre Two witty ladies--Two clever girls and mock-Shakespeare--The family who talked Johnsonian English--Old-fashioned tricks of pronunciation--Practical jokes--Lord Charles Beresford and the old Club-member--The shoeless legislator--Travellers' palms--The tree that spouted wine--Ceylon's spicy breezes--Some reflections--Decline of public interest in Parliament--Parliamentary giants--Gladstone, John Bright, and Chamberlain--Gladstone's last speech--His resignation--W.H. Smith--The Assistant Whips--Sir William Hart-Dyke--Weary hours at Westminster--A Pseudo-Ingoldsbean Lay CHAPTER VIII The Foreign Office--The new Private Secretary--A Cabinet key--Concerning theatricals--Some surnames which have passed into everyday use--Theatricals at Petrograd--A mock-opera--The family from Runcorn--An embarrassing predicament--Administering the oath--Secret Service--Popular errors--Legitimate employment of information--The Phoenix Park murders--I sanction an arrest--The innocent victim--The execution of the murderers of Alexander II.--The jarring military band--Black Magic--Sir Charles Wyke--Some of his experiences--The seance at the Pantheon--Sir Charles' experiments on myself--The Alchemists--The Elixir of Life, and the Philosopher's Stone--Lucid directions for their manufacture--Glamis Castle and its inhabitants--The tuneful Lyon family--Mr. Gladstone at Glamis--He sings in the glees--The castle and its treasures--Recollections of Glamis CHAPTER IX