I told him of my acquittal. "There's Russia for you," he declared. "You are at heart the technical villain and go free. I, the poor Samaritan, am fined. That's just about as much rhyme and reason as they show in this country in everything they do."
"And the little Englishman," I asked, "the one who really caused the entire trouble—where is he?"
"The last I heard of him he was out on one of the Pacific Islands, having a fine time."
In such ways were spent some of my student days in Europe. That I learned about Europe and its people during these unconventional experiences as I never could have learned about them had I spent all of my time in libraries and the lecture room, seems to me undeniably true. Some of my wanderings were, in all truth, a submission on my part to the all-demanding passion for wandering. Yet, as they came along in connection with my university studies, which kept my mind seriously inclined, I think they did me more good than harm. I learned to know England, Germany and Russia during these trips. It was also a good thing for me to be let loose every now and then into the jungle of Europe's vagabond districts and then vent such lingering Wanderlust as my temperament retained.
Political economy as a more immediate field of exploration was at times neglected. Professors Schmoller and Wagner were not listened to as attentively as they deserved to be. The German university idea of serious work was frequently disregarded. Perhaps it is furthermore fair to say that in continuing, as at times I did, my vagabondish explorations in Europe, I was assisting in perpetuating roving habits. I can now solemnly declare here that the real roaming habits of former days, roaming habits in the sense that I was willing at any time when Die Ferne called, to put on my hat and chase after her—received a complete chill during the European vagabond life. That it will pay one who desires to know Europe in the underground way, to make tramp trips such as I did, and to get acquainted before they leave home, with those millions of emigrants who come to us from Europe, I firmly believe. Neglected though my political economy was on many a journey, forgotten though were many of the books, I am not sure that I did not read my Europe, if not my political economy and other bookish things, better than I could have done it in written form.
Naturally during my tramp trips and experiences in Europe I made use of them for purposes of newspaper correspondence, magazine articles and incidentally for the preparation of such a comprehensive book as I thought I could write on tramp life in general. In this way these wanderings may again be called useful, because they helped to increase my powers of observation from a writer's point of view, and to give a serious purpose to such investigations on my part. I have no reason to regret any tramp trip made in Europe, but I am glad now that they are over and done with.
Such training in writing as the reporter gets on his newspaper, I got on returning to my home in Berlin, and having my "copy" most rigidly cut to pieces by my mother.
Of course this was not newspaper training in the sense that I had to report, and to a city editor. But it was all the training I ever had in writing that amounted to anything, until in after years I was interested enough in the business to observe for myself, in such examples of good writing as came to my hand, how, as Robert Louis Stevenson indicates in one of his books, language may be made to fit most tightly around the subject matter in hand.