Burke's _Peerage_ states that the family was ennobled by Richard Coeur de Lion, and has maintained itself in a high place for eight centuries. Privilege is a bough of the social tree from which we expect mere dead sea-fruit rather than a wholesome yield, but now and then the product holds something better than ashes. As we trace this stock through the ages, apples of Sodom, no doubt, will be found in abundance, but now and then it flowers into heroic manhood and lovely womanhood. My chance comrade of the _St. Paul_ was a refined, high-purposed man, certainly a product of the worthier kind, and I am glad to count among my friends, William Grey, Ninth Earl of Stamford. * * * * * As a student of German, anxious to gain fluency of expression, and to train my ear to catch readily the popular idioms, I found that I must fill out my writing and reading by contact with men. After roving the streets of German cities, I packed a knapsack and set out upon the country-roads. I was, as the Germans say, _gut zu Fuss_, a stout walker, and I learned to employ for my longer expeditions the _Bummel-Zug_, an institution I commend highly to all in my situation. The _Bummel-Zug_ is simply a "way" freight-train, to which in my time was attached a car for third-class passengers. It stopped at every village, and the fare was very low. It was convenient, therefore, for those too poor to be in a hurry, and for travellers like me whose purpose could be better served by loitering than by haste. The train proceeded leisurely, giving ample time for deliberate survey of the land, and the frequent pauses of indefinite length afforded opportunity for walks through the streets of remote hamlets and even into the country about, where the peasants with true Teuton _Gemüthlichkeit_ always welcomed a man who came from America.