Iron Cousins

ing anyone she wished to praise that I dare say I smiled. "H . . . m," said Herr Plessen, "I wish I had brought my wife with me." He paused a moment, sighed, and then continued speaking. "My wife has a strong character. She knows exactly what she wants; still she has left it to me. In her letter this morning she says truly that a personal interview lasting five minutes is better than any amount of correspondence, and she concludes 'I do not care what she looks like as long as she does not remind me of Mamsell.'" There was a movement in the room because one of the guests from Germany insisted on making a speech and people were crowding to his end of the room to listen to him. But Herr Plessen and I remained where we were. "I suppose you know no German," he said. "Very little." "I consider that an advantagee. The question is, do you know anything at all or are you as ignorant as we in Germany expect English people to be?" "You cannot possibly imagine me more ignorant than I am," I said with a sigh. "But you know your own language?" I shook my head. "Far from it," I assured him. "English is not an easy language to know." "There you make a mistake," said Herr Plessen. "English is the easiest language in Europe. It is not declined. Its nouns are all neuter. Nothing is difficult in English except its unreasonable pronunciation." I drank in his wisdom with a polite and I hope an interested expression, but instead of pursuing the...