Anderson, like himself, had entered Germany ignorant of the nation and its folk, and fully disposed to find almost everything worthy the highest praise. The elder's vivid convictions, his caustic reflections, were honestly born of what he had seen and heard in different parts of the land, not of what the Germans said of themselves in books, as was the customary rule. By virtue of his calling he had superior opportunities for observation. He was therefore not a negligible imparter of information. Gard usually found him in a high-ceilinged, majestic chamber in a typical Dresden _pension_, frequented, however, by only three or four boarders. It was a little like a home for Anderson, even if gloomily august in the German style. Dark woodwork, severely waxed floors on which Gard often slipped violently, huge doors, huge chairs and tables--everything large to suit the national taste for big Teuton gods and supermen. Long, thick stuffs concealed the passageways and windows and contributed to the absence of cheering light--that sign and symbol of the Gothic environment and disposition. The first question the old man usually plumped was: "How's your German going?" "Slowly. Pegging along. I suppose it's because I don't get up much of a liking for it. There's something about it that goes against my grain." And then Anderson would be off for that particular session. On one early occasion he had said, jestingly: "I guess you will have to fall back upon the natural method." "What's that?" had come back the innocent interrogatory. "Take a sweetheart. She will teach you more useful German in a month than you can learn from the pedagogues in a year. Right here in the best parts of Dresden are streets where these ladies can be rented with their rooms per week or per month cheap, with all the German you want thrown in. Are we to assume it is by this system that the German universities are able to turn out what the world believes are the best students?" "I never heard anything about that back home," confessed Kirtley, always letting the bars down to encourage a monologue. "Of course not. That would be to interfere with our American readiness to admit German transcendence." "But how do you harmonize the frank state of morals here with the fact that the Germans are the great religious authorities? How have they established such a reputation abroad for the morality that is assumed to go with Protestantism?"