constitutionally dissatisfied customers that an unfortunate shop-
keeper could possibly be cursed with; a customer who, after
twaddling for about forty minutes, and trying on, apparently, every
pair of boots in the place, calmly walks out with:

"Ah! well, I shall not purchase anything to-day. Good-morning!"

The shopkeeper's reply, by-the-by, is not given. It probably took
the form of a boot-jack, accompanied by phrases deemed useless for
the purposes of the Christian tourist.

There was really something remarkable about the exhaustiveness of
this "conversation at the shoemaker's." I should think the book
must have been written by someone who suffered from corns. I could
have gone to a German shoemaker with this book and have talked the
man's head off.

Then there were two pages of watery chatter "on meeting a friend in
the street"--"Good-morning, sir (or madam)." "I wish you a merry
Christmas." "How is your mother?" As if a man who hardly knew
enough German to keep body and soul together, would want to go about
asking after the health of a foreign person's mother.

There were also "conversations in the railway carriage,"
conversations between travelling lunatics, apparently, and dialogues
"during the passage." "How do you feel now?" "Pretty well as yet;
but I cannot say how long it will last." "Oh, what waves! I now
feel very unwell and shall go below. Ask for a basin for me."
Imagine a person who felt like that wanting to know the German for
it.