I slowly paced the floor, pondering scientific problems, and heard this conversation: 

Grandson.  First visit to Europe?

Harris.  Mine?  Yes.

G.S. (With a soft reminiscent sigh suggestive of bygone joys that may be tasted in their freshness but once.) Ah, I know what it is to you.  A first visit!—­ah, the romance of it!  I wish I could feel it again.

H. Yes, I find it exceeds all my dreams.  It is enchantment. 
I go...

G.S. (With a dainty gesture of the hand signifying “Spare me your callow enthusiasms, good friend.”) Yes, I know, I know; you go to cathedrals, and exclaim; and you drag through league-long picture-galleries and exclaim; and you stand here, and there, and yonder, upon historic ground, and continue to exclaim; and you are permeated with your first crude conceptions of Art, and are proud and happy.  Ah, yes, proud and happy—­that expresses it.  Yes-yes, enjoy it—­it is right—­it is an innocent revel.

H. And you?  Don’t you do these things now?

G.S.  I!  Oh, that is very good!  My dear sir, when you are as old a traveler as I am, you will not ask such a question as that. I visit the regulation gallery, moon around the regulation cathedral, do the worn round of the regulation sights, yet?—­Excuse me!

H. Well, what do you do, then?

G.S.  Do?  I flit—­and flit—­for I am ever on the wing—­but I avoid the herd.  Today I am in Paris, tomorrow in Berlin, anon in Rome; but you would look for me in vain in the galleries of the Louvre or the common resorts of the gazers in those other capitals.  If you would find me, you must look in the unvisited nooks and corners where others never think of going.  One day you will find me making myself at home in some obscure peasant’s cabin, another day you will find me in some forgotten castle worshiping some little gem or art which the careless eye has overlooked and which the unexperienced would despise; again you will find me as guest in the inner sanctuaries of palaces while the herd is content to get a hurried glimpse of the unused chambers by feeing a servant.

H. You are a guest in such places?

G.S.  And a welcoming one.

H. It is surprising.  How does it come?

G.S.  My grandfather’s name is a passport to all the courts in Europe.  I have only to utter that name and every door is open to me.  I flit from court to court at my own free will and pleasure, and am always welcome.  I am as much at home in the palaces of Europe as you are among your relatives.  I know every titled person in Europe, I think.  I have my pockets full of invitations all the time.  I am under promise to go to Italy, where I am to be the guest of a succession of the noblest houses in the land.  In Berlin my life is a continued round of gaiety in the imperial palace.  It is the same, wherever I go.