for self-contradiction.  He is the most extraordinary contrast to Teddy, whose confidence in the universe amounts almost to effrontery.  Teddy carries our national laxness to a foolhardy extent.  He is capable of leaving his watch in the middle of Claverings Park and expecting to find it a month later—­being carefully taken care of by a squirrel, I suppose—­when he happens to want it.  He’s rather like a squirrel himself—­without the habit of hoarding.  He is incapable of asking a question about anything; he would be quite sure it was all right anyhow.  He would feel that asking questions betrayed a want of confidence—­was a sort of incivility.  But my German, if you notice,—­his normal expression is one of grave solicitude.  He is like a conscientious ticket-collector among his impressions.  And did you notice how beautifully my pianola rolls are all numbered and catalogued?  He did that.  He set to work and did it as soon as he got here, just as a good cat when you bring it into the house sets to work and catches mice.  Previously the pianola music was chaos.  You took what God sent you.

“And he looks like a German,” said Mr. Britling.

“He certainly does that,” said Mr. Direck.

“He has the fair type of complexion, the rather full habit of body, the temperamental disposition, but in addition that close-cropped head, it is almost as if it were shaved, the plumpness, the glasses—­those are things that are made.  And the way he carries himself.  And the way he thinks.  His meticulousness.  When he arrived he was delightful, he was wearing a student’s corps cap and a rucksack, he carried a violin; he seemed to have come out of a book.  No one would ever dare to invent so German a German for a book.  Now, a young Frenchman or a young Italian or a young Russian coming here might look like a foreigner, but he wouldn’t have the distinctive national stamp a German has.  He wouldn’t be plainly French or Italian or Russian.  Other peoples are not made; they are neither made nor created but proceeding—­out of a thousand indefinable causes.  The Germans are a triumph of directive will.  I had to remark the other day that when my boys talked German they shouted.  ’But when one talks German one must shout,’ said Herr Heinrich.  ’It is taught so in the schools.’  And it is.  They teach them to shout and to throw out their chests.  Just as they teach them to read notice-boards and not think about politics.  Their very ribs are not their own.  My Herr Heinrich is comparatively a liberal thinker.  He asked me the other day, ’But why should I give myself up to philology?  But then,’ he reflected, ’it is what I have to do.’”

Mr. Britling seemed to have finished, and then just as Mr. Direck was planning a way of getting the talk back by way of Teddy to Miss Corner, he snuggled more deeply into his chair, reflected and broke out again.