It is easy to say these things; it is easy to revile us, easy to despise us; therefore, let these people rail on; they cannot feel as Byng and I feel—­it is their loss, not ours.  For my part I am content to be a brick-a-bracker and a ceramiker—­more, I am proud to be so named.  I am proud to know that I lose my reason as immediately in the presence of a rare jug with an illustrious mark on the bottom of it, as if I had just emptied that jug.  Very well; I packed and stored a part of my collection, and the rest of it I placed in the care of the Grand Ducal Museum in Mannheim, by permission.  My Old Blue China Cat remains there yet.  I presented it to that excellent institution.

I had but one misfortune with my things.  An egg which I had kept back from breakfast that morning, was broken in packing.  It was a great pity.  I had shown it to the best connoisseurs in Heidelberg, and they all said it was an antique.  We spent a day or two in farewell visits, and then left for Baden-Baden.  We had a pleasant trip to it, for the Rhine valley is always lovely.  The only trouble was that the trip was too short.  If I remember rightly it only occupied a couple of hours, therefore I judge that the distance was very little, if any, over fifty miles.  We quitted the train at Oos, and walked the entire remaining distance to Baden-Baden, with the exception of a lift of less than an hour which we got on a passing wagon, the weather being exhaustingly warm.  We came into town on foot.

One of the first persons we encountered, as we walked
up the street, was the Rev. Mr. ------, an old friend
from America—­a lucky encounter, indeed, for his is
a most gentle, refined, and sensitive nature, and his
company and companionship are a genuine refreshment. 
We knew he had been in Europe some time, but were not
at all expecting to run across him.   Both parties burst
forth into loving enthusiasms, and Rev. Mr. ------said: 

“I have got a brimful reservoir of talk to pour out on you, and an empty one ready and thirsting to receive what you have got; we will sit up till midnight and have a good satisfying interchange, for I leave here early in the morning.”  We agreed to that, of course.

I had been vaguely conscious, for a while, of a person who was walking in the street abreast of us; I had glanced furtively at him once or twice, and noticed that he was a fine, large, vigorous young fellow, with an open, independent countenance, faintly shaded with a pale and even almost imperceptible crop of early down, and that he was clothed from head to heel in cool and enviable snow-white linen.  I thought I had also noticed that his head had a sort of listening tilt to it.  Now about this time the Rev. Mr. ------said: 

“The sidewalk is hardly wide enough for three, so I will walk behind; but keep the talk going, keep the talk going, there’s no time to lose, and you may be sure I will do my share.”  He ranged himself behind us, and straightway that stately snow-white young fellow closed up to the sidewalk alongside him, fetched him a cordial slap on the shoulder with his broad palm, and sung out with a hearty cheeriness: