To return, after this long digression, to the portly German middle-aged business men who met weekly in Brunswick to improve their working knowledge of French and English, I must candidly say that I never detected the faintest shadow of animosity to Great Britain in them.  They were not Prussians—­they were Hanoverians and Brunswickers.  They felt proud, I think, that the throne of Britain was then occupied by a branch of their own ancient House of Guelph; they remembered the hundred years’ connection between Britain and Hanover; as business men they acknowledged Britain’s then unquestioned industrial supremacy, and they recognised that men of their class enjoyed in England a position and a power which was not accorded to them in Germany.  Certainly they never lost an opportunity of pointing out that Britain was neither a military nor a fighting nation, and would never venture again to conduct a campaign on the Continent.  Recent events will show how correct they were in their forecasts.

I liked the society of these shrewd, practical men, for from being so much with the French judges, I had become accustomed to associating with men double or treble my own age.  There was nothing corresponding to the gaiete francaise about them, though at times a ponderous playfulness marked their lighter moments, and flashes of elephantine jocularity enlivened the proceedings of the Club.  I picked up some useful items of knowledge from them, for I regret to admit that up to that time I had no idea what a bill of lading was, or a ship’s manifest; after a while, even such cryptic expressions, too, as f.o.b. and c.i.f. ceased to have any mysteries for me.  Let the inexperienced beware of “Swedish Punch,” a sickly, highly-scented preparation of arrack.  I do not speak from personal experience, for I detest the sweet, cloying stuff; but it occasionally fell to my lot to guide down-stairs the uncertain footsteps of some ventripotent Kommerzien-Rath, or even of Mr. Over-Inspector of Railways himself, both temporarily incapacitated by injudicious indulgence in Swedish Punch.  “So, Herr Ober-Inspector, endlich sind wir glucklich herunter gekommen.  Jetz konnen Sie nach Hause immer aug gleichem Fusse gehen.  Naturlich!  Jedermann weisst wie abscheulich kraftig Schwedischer Punsch ist.  Die Strasse ist ganz leer.  Gluckliche Heimkehr, Herr Ober-Inspector!”

It was difficult to attend the Club without becoming a connoisseur in various kinds of German beer.  Brunswick boasts a special local sweet black beer, brewed from malted wheat instead of barley, known as “Mumme”—­heavy, unpalatable stuff.  If any one will take the trouble to consult Whitaker’s Almanac, and turn to “Customs Tariff of the United Kingdom,” they will find the very first article on the list is “Mum.”  “Berlin white beer” follows this.  One of the few occasions when I have ever known Mr. Gladstone nonplussed for an answer, was in a debate on the Budget (I think in 1886) on a proposed increase