the size of peas, but scars half as broad as your hand, a spectacle, the like of which I have never again encountered.  Yet, as already said, a contract was entered into, and a happier one was never closed.  The Schroeder girl was a treasure, and when my mother came home six weeks later she said:  “You did well to take her, Louis; disfigured as she is, her eyes have been spared, and they tell one that she is faithful and reliable.  And she is safe from love affairs, and we with her.  With her we shall have only pleasant experiences.”

And so it proved.  So long as we remained in Swinemuende the Schroeder girl remained in our house, loved and respected by old and young, not least of all by my father, who gave her particular credit for her sense of justice and her candor, in spite of the fact that he occasionally had to suffer severely because of these two qualities.  She was always waging war against him.  In the first place, out of love for my mother, for whom she came to be an eloquent advocate, in spite of the fact that my mother was thoroughly able to defend herself, in accordance with her maxim, “The best defense is a blow.”  In the second place, she was the mistress of the pantry, which was intrusted to her with most plenary powers, and my father was always undertaking pillaging expeditions against it, not only to satisfy his own personal wants, which she might have tolerated, even though he was capable of consuming half a veal roast for his breakfast, without thinking anything about it; but she objected strenuously to his raids for the benefit of his pet chickens, dogs, and cats.  We had two cats, Peter and Petrine.  Peter, also called Peter the Great, who might have been mistaken for a young jaguar, was his special pet, and when this beautiful animal followed him, purring, into the pantry, and he always followed, there was no end to the dainty morsels given him.  The best was none too good.  This wanton waste made the Schroeder girl, faithful soul that she was, fly into a rage, for she often saw her plans for dinner completely upset.

In the house she was indeed a treasure, but for us children, especially me, she was even more than that, she was a real blessing.  The training we received from our parents advanced by fits and starts; sometimes there was training and again there was none, and never any thought of continuity.  But the Schroeder girl supplied the continuity.  She had no favorites, never allowed herself to be outwitted, and knew just how to handle each one of us.  As for me, she knew that I was good-natured, but sensitive, proud, and under the control of a certain degree of megalomania.  These bad inclinations she wished to hold in check, and so said to me times without number:  “Yes, you think you are a marvelous fellow, but you are only a childish boy, just like the rest of them, only at times a bit worse.  You always want to play the young gentleman, but young gentlemen don’t lick honey from their plates, or at least don’t