Spring was gone, and summer had come, when one Sunday morning Hawermann received a letter from Braesig dated from Warnitz, in which his friend requested him to remain at home that day, for he had returned and intended to call on him that afternoon.  When Braesig arrived, he sprang from his saddle with so much force that one might have thought he wanted to go through the road with both legs.  “Oho!” cried Hawermann, “how brisk you are!  You’re all right now, ar’n’t you?” “As right as a trivet, Charles.  I’ve renewed my youth.”  “Well, how have you been getting on, old boy?” asked Hawermann, when they were seated on the sofa and their pipes were lighted.  “Listen, Charles.  Cold, damp, watery, clammy-that’s about what it comes to.  It’s just turning a human being into a frog, and before a man’s nature is so changed, he has such a hard time of it that he begins to wish that he had come into the world a frog:  still, it isn’t a bad thing!  You begin the day with the common packing, as they call it.  They wrap you up in cold, damp sheets, and then in woollen blankets, in which they fasten you up so tight that you can’t move any part of your body except your toes.  In this condition they take you to a bath-room, and a man goes before you ringing a bell to warn the ladies to keep out of your way.  Then they place you, just as God made you, in a bath, and dash three pails of water over your bald head, if you happen to have one, and after that they allow you to go away.  Well, do you think that that’s the end of it?  Nay, Charles, there’s more to follow; but it’s a good thing all the same.  Now you’ve got to go for a walk in a place where you’ve nothing earthly to do.  I’ve been accustomed all my life to walk a great deal, but then it was doing something, ploughing or harrowing, spreading manure or cutting corn, and there I’d no occupation whatever.  While walking you are expected to drink ever so many tumblers of water, ever so many.  Some of the people were exactly like sieves, they were always at it, and they used to gasp out ‘What splendid water it is!’ Don’t believe them, Charles, it is nothing but talk.  Water applied externally is bad enough in all conscience, but internally it’s still more horrible.  Then comes the sitz-bath.  Do you know what a bath at four degrees below zero is like?  It’s very much what you would feel if you were in hell, and the devil had tied you down to a glowing iron chair, under which he kept up a roaring fire; still it’s a good thing!  Then you’ve to walk again till dinner-time.  And now comes dinner.  Ah, Charles, you have no idea what a human being goes through at a water-cure place!  You’ve got to drink no end of water.  Charles, I’ve seen ladies, small and thin as real angels, drink each of them three caraffes as large as laundry-pails at a sitting—­and then the potatoes!  Good gracious, as many potatoes were eaten in a day as would have served to plant an acre of ground!  These water-doctors are much to be pitied, their patients must eat them out of