We called him "Uncle Lenne," and often walked down our street hand in
hand with him.

It is well known that the part of the city on the other side of the
Potsdam Gate was called the "Geheimerath-Quarter." Our street, it is
true, lay nearer to the Brandenburg Gate, yet it really belonged to that
section; for there was not a single house without at least one
Geheimerath (Privy Councillor).

Yet this superabundance of men in "secret" positions lent no touch of
mystery to our cheerful street, shaded by the green of the forest.
Franker, gayer, sometimes noisier children than its residents could not
be found in Berlin. I was only a little fellow when we lived there, and
merely tolerated in the "big boys'" sports, but it was a festival when,
with Ludo, I could carry their provisions for them or even help them make
fireworks. The old Rechnungsrath, who lived in the house owned by
Geheimerath Crede, the father of my Leipsic colleague, was their
instructor in this art, which was to prove disastrous to my oldest
brother and bright Paul Seiffart; for--may they pardon me the treachery--
they took one of the fireworks to school, where--I hope accidentally--it
went off. At first this caused much amusement, but strict judgment
followed, and led to my mother's resolution to send her oldest son away
from home to some educational institution.

The well-known teacher, Adolph Diesterweg, whose acquaintance she had
made at the house of a friend, recommended Keilhau, and so our little
band was deprived of the leader to whom Ludo and I had looked up with a
certain degree of reverence on account of his superior strength, his bold
spirit of enterprise, and his kindly condescension to us younger ones.