Short and broad-shouldered, with the flaxen hair and porcelain-coloured eyes of the true man of Kiel or Koenigsberg, Dr. Karl Rothenberger prided himself on being a townsman of the Great Kant, “who make the critique of pure sense.” For him in vain the modern mystic spread his nets; his mass, his psychological research, his ethics based on the saving of his own gelatinous soul, said nothing to the man of Koenigsberg. His work to minister by electricity to the rheumatic, the gouty; to those who had loved perhaps well, but certainly in a vicarious and post-prandial fashion; his passion fishing with a float; a “goode felawe,” not too refined, but yet well educated; his literary taste bounded by idealistic novels about materialistic folk, and the drum-taps of the bards of Anglo-Saxon militarism; the doctor looked on the world as a vast operating theatre, sparing not even his own foibles in his diagnosis of mankind. All sentiment he held if not accursed, yet as superfluous, and though he did not pride himself exactly on his opinions, knowing them well to be but the result of education, and of a few molecules of iron, more or less, in the composition of his blood, yet would deliver them to all and sundry, as he were lecturing to students in a university. Women he held inferior to men, as really do almost all men, although they fear to say so; but again, he said, “de womens they have occupy my mind since I was eighteen years.”

So after many wanderings in divers lands, he came, as wise men will, to London, and set up his household gods in a vast plane-tree-planted square (with cat ground in the middle called a garden), and of which the residents each had a key, but never walked in, sat in, or used in any way, though all of them would have gone to the stake rather than see a member of the public enter into its sacred precincts, or a stray child play in it, unless attended by a nurse.

Honours and fees fell thick on Rothenberger, and he became greatly belettered, member of many a learned, dull society. He duly purchased a degree; and squares and crescents quite a mile away sent out their patients, and were filled with the sonorous glory of his name. One thing was wanting, and that one thing troubled him not a little; but he yet saw it was inevitable if he would rise to Harley Street or Saville Row, and the sleek pair of horses which (without bearing-reins) testify to a doctor’s status in the scientific world. A wife, or as he said, a “real legitimate,” to prove to all his patients that he was a moral man. Strange that the domestic arrangements of a public man should militate for or against him; but so it is, at least in England, where even if a man cheat and spread ruin to thousands, yet he may find apologists, chiefly, of course, amongst that portion of the public who have not suffered by his delinquencies, so that his life be what is known as pure. Morals and purity in our group of islands seem to condone drunkenness, lies, and even theft (so that the sum stolen be large enough), and to have crystallized themselves into a censorship of precisely the very thing as to which no man or woman has the right to call another to account.

So Rothenberger, looking about for a vessel by means of which to purify himself (and push his business), lit on a girl with money, living, as he said, “oot by Hampstead way;” went through the process known as courting, in a mixture of German and of English, eked out with Plaat-Deutsch, and finally induced the lady to fix the day on which to make him pure. Science and business jointly having so taken up his time that he had learnt but little English, he was at some loss, and left arrangements to the family of his intended wife.

Not knowing English customs, he had written asking in what costume he should appear on the great day, and received a letter telling him to make his appearance at the church duly dressed in a tall hat, light trousers, and a new frock coat. Frock coat he read as “frac,” and ordered wedding garments such as he thought suitable, with the addition of a brand-new evening coat. The wedding breakfast having been ordered at the Hotel Metropole, he there transferred himself, proposing to pass the night before his final entry into moral life quietly and decently, as befits one about to change his state. But as he said, “God or some other thing was of another mind,” for when I was arriving at the place, mein head feel heavy, and I was out of sorts, and when I ring the bell, a housemaid answer it wit a hot-water jug, and came into the room. Himmel, what for a girl, black hair like horse’s tail, great glear plue eyes, and tall and fat, it was a miracle. I fall in love wit her almost at once, but I say nothings, only wink little at her with my eye. All the night long I could not schleep, thinking part of the housemaid, part of mein wife, and part if perhaps I was not going to do a very silly ding. When it was morning I have quite forgot the church, but still remember what the clergyman was like. So I go to the porter (he was a landsman of my own), and ask him to get me a cab, and then explain, I was to be married oot by Hampstead way, that morning at eleven and half o’clock. The porter say what church shall I tell the schelm to drive to, but mein Got I have forgot. So I say, go to Hampstead, and I will go to all the churches and ask if a German is to be married, till I find the right one out. The cabman think that I was mad, and I get into the cab dressed in clear trousers, white waistcoat, and plue necktie, mit little spot; shiny new boots that hurt me very much; with yellow gloves three-quarter-eight in size, and with my new “frac” coat, so that I think myself, eh, Rothenberger, was that really you? The cabman wink mit de porter, and we start away. We drive and drive, first to one church and then another, and I always ask, is it in this church that a German is to be marry at half twelve o’clock? Dey grin at me, and every one say no. De dime approach, and I was sweating in the cab, not knowing what they say if at half twelve o’clock I not turn up to time. At last looking out from the window I see the clergyman walking along the street mit a big hymnbook in his hand. I cry to him, Ach Himmel, it is I, Karl Rothenberger, that you must marry at half twelve o’clock. He stop, and shomp into the cab, and then we drive to church.

All was so glad to see me, for I hear one say, I thought the German must have change his mind. I ran into the church, and my wife say, What for a costume is it that you have? Frock coat and clear grey pants, dat is not wedding dress; so I say I know dat, but why you write to me, mind and buy a new “frac coat”?

They mumble out their stuff, and when the clergyman ask me if I want this woman for mein wife, I say, all right, and all the people laugh like everythings. Then when he say, I, Karl, do promise and etcetera, I say, dat is so, and de people laugh again. At last it all was done, and we drive off to the hotel to have the breakfast, and mein wife look beautiful in her new travelling dress. At the hotel the company was met, and I go up to mein apartment to change the dam frac coat, to wash mein hands, and put a little brillantine on my moustache, whilst mein wife mit the bridesmaids go to another room, and all the company was waiting down below.

I want hot water, so I rang the bell, and the stout pretta chambermaid she bring it in a jug. How the thing pass I never knew till now, but I wink at her, and she laugh, and then—she put down the jug, just for a moment,—for the company, mein wife, her father, and the bridesmaids, all was waiting down below. So I come down and make mein speech, talk to the bridesmaids, and we eat like anythings, and then we drive away to pass our honeymoon, and somehow I feel mein head much lighter than before. Marriage is good for man, it sober him, it bring him business, and it bring him children, and . . . I am happy mit my wife . . . The housemaid, oh yes, ach Got, I hear that some one take from the place to live mit him, and it is not a wonder, for she was so tall, so stout, have such black hair, and such great eyes, it was a pity that she spend her life answering the bell, and bringing up hot water in a jug.