The speech of the evening was received with rapturous applause, though elements of dissent were not unrepresented. But, as I have said before, German political meetings are not arranged with a view to helping the heckler. It is one thing to fire off questions from the body of the hall, quite another to go upon the platform and make a reasoned speech of protest surrounded by your enemies. Even so the “discussions” are at times sufficiently lively. A nice old working-man, with clothes so patched that the original pattern had almost disappeared, sat next me in my corner. He was obviously full of protest at the speech, and obviously anxious to explain his objections to me. But the necessities of my incognito demanded strict silence, for my speech I knew would betray me if I became involved in conversation however interesting. So I was forced to assume an attitude of haughty aloofness, much though I regretted the latter. When the Berlin gentleman sat down, another prop of the Volkspartei, an elderly and spectacled lady, advanced to the reading-desk fairly staggering under a load of MS. “Lieber Gott!” said two young men sitting in front of me when she had said half a dozen words. Seizing their hats, they fled forthwith. I bore with the portentous dullness of the lady for a few minutes and then fled in my turn. The evening though interesting had not been agreeable. There had been too much truth in many of the taunts hurled by the Professor at the democratic professors of the Allies and their “faithful guardianship” of the principles of liberty and justice. The miserable state of confusion to which the pundits of the Peace Conference have reduced Europe is only too apparent to any one living on the Continent. But to have the moral enforced and adorned by a German is poor work for an English woman. III One outstanding impression which I have carried away from political meetings in Germany is the easy life of a German parliamentary candidate. So far as I could judge, these happy individuals saunter through a campaign with relative ease and leisure. Instead of a hectic evening spent in rushing from one meeting to another, candidates sit for hours listening to one another’s oratory. The absence of heckling and questions makes the delivery of long political treatises, which are but mildly challenged, a simple task. There are of course exceptions, and some meetings, notably Socialist ones, announce a “discussion,” at which feeling runs high. But the average German audience is very long-suffering, and tolerates bores and speeches of inordinate length which would empty an English gathering. The whole spirit of a German meeting is hostile to interruptions. I have heard a man who interjected a harmless remark torn to pieces by the speaker, with the obvious approval of the audience.