of the undergraduate, lest the local students we were likely to
meet might make us rue our presumption.

Since my first visit, when I was eight years old, I had only once
returned to Leipzig, and then for a very brief stay, and under
circumstances very similar to those of the earlier visit. I now
renewed my fantastic impressions of the Thome house, but this
time, owing to my more advanced education, I looked forward to
more intelligent intercourse with my uncle Adolph. An opening for
this was soon provided by my joyous astonishment on learning that
a bookcase in the large anteroom, containing a goodly collection
of books, was my property, having been left me by my father. I
went through the books with my uncle, selected at once a number
of Latin authors in the handsome Zweibruck edition, along with
sundry attractive looking works of poetry and belles-lettres, and
arranged for them to be sent to Dresden. During this visit I was
very much interested in the life of the students. In addition to
my impressions of the theatre and of Prague, now came those of
the so-called swaggering undergraduate. A great change had taken
place in this class. When, as a lad of eight, I had my first
glimpse of students, their long hair, their old German costume
with the black velvet skull-cap and the shirt collar turned back
from the bare neck, had quite taken my fancy. But since that time
the old student 'associations' which affected this fashion had
disappeared in the face of police prosecutions. On the other
hand, the national student clubs, no less peculiar to Germans,
had become conspicuous. These clubs adopted, more or less, the
fashion of the day, but with some little exaggeration. Albeit,
their dress was clearly distinguishable from that of other
classes, owing to its picturesqueness, and especially its display