But when it does come I shall be ready for it.
I also put on the bed a few volumes of Goethe, because I thought it would be so pleasant to read him in his own country. And I decided to take a sponge, together with a small portable bath, because a cold bath is so refreshing the first thing in the morning.
B. came in just as I had got everything into a pile. He stared at the bed, and asked me what I was doing. I told him I was packing.
“Great Heavens!” he exclaimed. “I thought you were moving! What do you think we are going to do—camp out?”
“No!” I replied. “But these are the things I have been advised to take with me. What is the use of people giving you advice if you don’t take it?”
He said:
“Oh! take as much advice as you like; that always comes in useful to give away. But, for goodness sake, don’t get carrying all that stuff about with you. People will take us for Gipsies.”
I said:
“Now, it’s no use your talking nonsense. Half the things on this bed are life-preserving things. If people go into Germany without these things, they come home and die.”
And I related to him what the doctor and the vicar and the other people had told me, and explained to him how my life depended upon my taking brandy and blankets and sunshades and plenty of warm clothing with me.