The German tutor, a dreamy misty transcendentalist, was eminently unfitted for the charge intrusted to him. He gave the boy certain books, and left him to read them or not, as he chose; he set him certain tasks, but never took the trouble to see how they had been performed, or, indeed, whether they had been touched at all, till he was remarkably astonished after a short time to find his pupil speaking very excellent German, and once or twice took the trouble to wonder how "Homfrie," as he called him, could have acquired such a mastery of the language. Had an explanation of the marvel ever been asked of Humphrey himself, he could have explained it very readily. The town selected for his domicile was one of the celebrated art-academies of Germany, a place where painters of all kinds flocked from all parts to study under the renowned professors therein resident. A jovial, thriftless, kindly set of Bohemians these painters, in the strict sense of the word, impecunious to a degree, now working from morn till eve for days together, now not touching pencil or maulstick for weeks, living in a perpetual fog of tobacco, and spending their nights in beer-drinking and song-singing, in cheap epicureanism and noisy philosophical discussions. To this society of careless convives Humphrey Statham obtained a ready introduction, and among them soon established himself as a prime favourite. The bright face and interminable spirits of "Gesellschap's Englander," as he was called (Gesellschap was the name of his tutor), made him welcome everywhere. He passed his days in lounging from studio to studio, smoking pipes and exchanging jokes with their denizens, occasionally standing for a model for his hosts, now with bare neck and arms appearing as a Roman gladiator, now with casque and morion as a young Flemish burgher of Van Artevelde's guard, always ready, always obliging, roaring at his own linguistic mistakes, but never failing to correct them; while at night at the painters' club, the Malkasten, or the less aristocratic Kneipe, his voice was the cheeriest in the chorus, his wit the readiest in suggesting tableaux vivants, or in improvising practical jokes.