"That path is reserved for children." "But I wouldn't do them any harm," said the old lady, with a smile.

She did not look the sort of old lady who would have done them any harm.
"Madam," I replied, "if it rested with me, I would trust you down that path, though my own first-born were at the other end; but I can only inform you of the laws of this country.

For you, a full-grown woman, to venture down that path is to go to certain fine, if not imprisonment.
There is your path, marked plainly--_Nur fur Fussganger_, and if you will follow my advice, you will hasten down it; you are not allowed to stand here and hesitate." "It doesn't lead a bit in the direction I want to go," said the old lady.
"It leads in the direction you _ought_ to want to go," I replied, and we parted.
In the German parks there are special seats labelled, "Only for grown- ups" (_Nur fur Erwachsene_), and the German small boy, anxious to sit down, and reading that notice, passes by, and hunts for a seat on which children are permitted to rest; and there he seats himself, careful not to touch the woodwork with his muddy boots.

Imagine a seat in Regent's or St.James's Park labelled "Only for grown-ups!" Every child for five miles round would be trying to get on that seat, and hauling other children off who were on.

As for any "grown-up," he would never be able to get within half a mile of that seat for the crowd.