On the next occasion Mr. Brice was one of the orators at a much larger meeting in a garden in South St. Louis.  The audience was mostly German.  And this was even a happier event, inasmuch as Mr. Brice was able to trace with some skill the history of the Fatherland from the Napoleonic wars to its Revolution.  Incidentally he told them why they had emigrated to this great and free country.  And when in an inspired moment he coupled the names of Abraham Lincoln and Father Jahn, the very leaves of the trees above them trembled at their cheers.

And afterwards there was a long-remembered supper in the moonlit grove with Richter and a party of his college friends from Jena.  There was Herr Tiefel with the little Dresden-blue eyes, red and round and jolly; and Hauptmann, long and thin and sallow; and Korner, redbearded and ponderous; and Konig, a little clean-cut man with a blond mustache that pointed upward.  They clattered their steins on the table and sang wonderful Jena songs, while Stephen was lifted up and his soul carried off to far-away Saxony,—­to the clean little University town with its towers and crooked streets.  And when they sang the Trolksmelodie, “Bemooster Bursche zieh’ ich aus,—­Ade!” a big tear rolled down the scar on Richter’s cheek.

       “Fahrt wohl, ihr Strassen grad and krumm
        Ich zieh’ nicht mehr in euch herum,
        Durchton euch nicht mehr mit Gesang,
        Mit Larm nicht mehr and Sporenklang.”

As the deep tones died away, the soft night was steeped in the sadness of that farewell song.  It was Richter who brought the full force of it home to Stephen.

“Do you recall the day you left your Harvard, and your Boston, my friend?” he asked.

Stephen only nodded.  He had never spoken of the bitterness of that, even to his mother.  And here was the difference between the Saxon and the Anglo-Saxon.

Richter smoked his pipe ’mid dreamy silence, the tear still wet upon his face.

“Tiefel and I were at the University together,” he said at length.  “He remembers the day I left Jena for good and all.  Ah, Stephen, that is the most pathetic thing in life, next to leaving the Fatherland.  We dine with our student club for the last time at the Burg Keller, a dingy little tavern under a grim old house, but very dear to us.  We swear for the last time to be clean and honorable and patriotic, and to die for the Fatherland, if God so wills.  And then we march at the head of a slow procession out of the old West Gate, two and two, old members first, then the fox major and the foxes.”

“The foxes?” Stephen interrupted.

“The youngsters—­the freshmen, you call them,” answered Richter, smiling.

“And after the foxes,” said Herr Tiefel, taking up the story, “after the foxes comes the empty carriage, with its gay postilion and four.  It is like a long funeral.  And every man is chanting that song.  And so we go slowly until we; come to the Oil Mill Tavern, where we have had many a schlager-bout with the aristocrats.  And the president of our society makes his farewell speech under the vines, and we drink to you with all the honors.  And we drank to you, Carl, renowned swordsman!” And Herr Tiefel, carried away by the recollection, rose to his feet.