Henry Seton Merriman

“ I remember to this day the pleasure of skating with Lisa's warmly gloved little hands in my own—her small furred form touching me lightly each time we swung over to the left on the outside edge. I saw Andrew Smallie once or twice. Once he winked at me, knowingly, as I passed him with Lisa—and I hated him for it. That man almost spoilt Göttingen for me. Britons are no friends of mine out of their own country. They never get over the fallacy that everywhere except London is an out-of-the-way place where nothing matters. ”

“ It was Lisa who told me that another young Briton was coming to live in Göttingen—not, however, as a student at the University. He turned out to be a Scotsman—one Andrew Smallie, the dissolute offspring of a prim Edinburgh family. He had been shipped off to Göttingen, in the hope that he might there drink himself quietly to death. The Scotch do not keep their skeletons at home in a cupboard. They ship them abroad and give them facilities. ”

“ Hence the nickname by which he was known amongst us. The term was applied to me a thousand times—figuratively. For I am a small man, as I have had reason to deplore more than once while carrying the wounded out of action. ”