[My Precious, Priceless Tear-Jug] Next morning brought good news--our trunks had arrived from Hamburg at last.

Let this be a warning to the reader.

The Germans are very conscientious, and this trait makes them very particular.

Therefore if you tell a German you want a thing done immediately, he takes you at your word; he thinks you mean what you say; so he does that thing immediately--according to his idea of immediately--which is about a week; that is, it is a week if it refers to the building of a garment, or it is an hour and a half if it refers to the cooking of a trout.

Very well; if you tell a German to send your trunk to you by "slow freight," he takes you at your word; he sends it by "slow freight," and you cannot imagine how long you will go on enlarging your admiration of the expressiveness of that phrase in the German tongue, before you get that trunk.