air of those who have no burdens to carry, and no bills to pay, which characterises the Continental middle class on its Sunday outing.  It was impossible to escape them, for their cheerful interest in our clothes, their friendly smiling countenances robbed their attendance of all impertinence.  Thus, somewhat of their company, although not strictly belonging to it, we went to the Steinerne Theatre, hewn in the rock, where pastorals and operas were at one time performed under the direction of the prince-bishops.

Then, in front of the Mechanical Theatre, there is a flight of great stone steps and balustrades of granite upon which, in company with our German friends, we hung and climbed and stood, while the most ingenious little play was performed by tiny puppets that I ever had the good fortune to behold.  Over and over again the midgets went through every performance of mechanicism with such precision and accuracy that it took me back to the first mechanical toy I ever possessed.  This little mechanical theatre is really a wonder.

I have never been sure how seriously to blame Jimmie for what followed.  At any rate, he knew something of the trick, and I have a distant recollection of the gleam in his eyes when he led his unsuspecting party along the gravel walk to the side of a certain granite building, whose function I have forgotten.  I remember standing there and looking up the stone steps at our German friends, when suddenly out from behind the stones of this building, from the cornice, from above and from beneath, shot jets of water, drenching me and all others who were back of me, and sending us forward in a mad rush to gain the top of those stone steps, and so to safety.  A stout German frau, weighing something between three and four hundred pounds, trod on the train of my gown, and the gathers gave way at the belt with that horrid ripping noise which every woman has heard at some time of her life.  It generally means a man.  It makes no difference, however; man or woman, the result is the same.  As I could not shake her off, and we were both bound for the same place, she continued walking up my back, and in this manner we gained the top of the steps and the gravelled walk, only to find that thin streams of water from subterranean fountains were shooting up through the gravel, making it useless to try to escape.  It was all over in a minute, but in the meantime we were drenched within and without and in such a fury that I for one am not recovered from it.  It seems that this is one of the practical jokes of which the German mind is capable.  Practical jokes seem to me worse than, and on the order of, calamities.  Unfortunately Mrs. Jimmie was the wettest of any of us.  She had on better clothes than Bee or I, and she refused to run, and she got soaking wet.  I really pity Jimmie as I look back on it.