"I should be afraid to put my school-boy German against your English,"
March said, and, when he had understood, the other laughed for pleasure,
and reported the compliment to his wife in their own parlance. "You
Germans certainly beat us in languages."
"Oh, well," he retaliated, "the Americans beat us in some other things,"
and Mrs. March felt that this was but just; she would have liked to
mention a few, but not ungraciously; she and the German lady kept smiling
across the table, and trying detached vocables of their respective
tongues upon each other.
The Bavarian said he lived in Munich still, but was in Ansbach on an
affair of business; he asked March if he were not going to see the
manoeuvres somewhere. Till now the manoeuvres had merely been the
interesting background of their travel; but now, hearing that the Emperor
of Germany, the King of Saxony, the Regent of Bavaria, and the King of
Wurtemberg, the Grand-Dukes of Weimar and Baden, with visiting potentates
of all sorts, and innumerable lesser highhotes, foreign and domestic,
were to be present, Mrs. March resolved that they must go to at least one
of the reviews.
"If you go to Frankfort, you can see the King of Italy too," said the
Bavarian, but he owned that they probably could not get into a hotel
there, and he asked why they should not go to Wurzburg, where they could
see all the sovereigns except the King of Italy.
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