It is this false moral training of the students of Germany that will prove one of her greatest dangers in the future.
Baron von Stammnitz had studied English, and began at once to edify May by airing it. She expressed her admiration of the Harz, its history and legends.
He replied, "Yes, the Harz is highly interesting, but chiefly so through its old leg-ends."
But let us not be too hard on the Baron in this respect, for the English often make as ludicrous errors in German. The writer heard a young lady in Cologne order Himmelfleisch, meaning Hammelfleisch. She intended to ask for mutton, but in reality ordered heaven's meat. And the waiter, with his solemn, impenetrable face, replied, "I regret we have not that dish."
A gentleman in Leipzig ordered Kinderbraten and Pantoffel—child roast and slippers! He wanted Rinderbraten and Kartoffel—roast beef and potatoes!
People who drop their H's in English do the same in German. An English girl driving away from Ballenstedt, cried out, "Farewell, Arz!"
At the hotel by the Radau waterfall an old man ordered the Kellner to bring beer, and called after him, "Aber ell!" Hell he meant—clear or white in contrast to brown beer.
He had been parading about and ordering the Kellner as if he owned the whole place, which made his missing h all the more amusing.
But to return to the Baron. May spoke of the towered village church nestling so confidingly in the rich foliage, and regretted she had not yet seen the interior, but hoped to the following Sunday.
"Pray, Miss Rosenmore, you do not keep up that absurd idea of going to church? I have not been in a church for five years. While they insist on preaching the old fables that nobody believes any more, I shall not go. I can attend to my religion much better in my own room, or in the woods, where the trees form nobler Gothic arches than any cathedral, from Köln and Halberstadt down. Even meine Mutter told me not to trouble myself about the Bible, for there was no truth in it."