The Goose Girl

The day promised to be mild. There was not a cloud anywhere, and the morning mists had risen from the valleys. It was good to stand in the sunshine which seemed to draw forth all the vagaries and weariness of sleep from the mind and body. Hans Grumbach shook himself gratefully. He was standing on the curb in front of the Grand Hotel, his back to the sun. It was nine o'clock. The broad König Strasse shone, the white stone of the palaces glared, the fountains glistened, and the coloring tree tops scintillated like the head-dress of an Indian prince. Hans was short but strongly built; a mild blue-eyed German, smooth-faced, ruddy-cheeked, white-haired, with a brown button of a nose. He drank his beer with the best of them, but it never got so far as his nose save from the outside. His suit was tight-fitting, but the checks were ample, and the watch-chain a little too heavy, and the huge garnet on his third finger was not in good taste. But what's the odds? Grumbach was satisfied, and it's one's own satisfaction that counts most.

Presently two police officers came along and went into the hotel. Grumbach turned with a sigh and followed them. Doubtless they had come to look over his passports. And this happened to be the case.

The senior officer unfolded the precious document.

"It is not yet viséed by your consul," said the officer.

"I arrived late last night. I shall see him this morning," replied Grumbach.

"You were not born in America?"

"Oh, no; I came from Bavaria."

"At what age?"

"I was twenty."

"Did you go to America with your parents?"

"No. I was alone."

"You still have your permit to leave Bavaria?"

"I believe so; I am not certain. I never thought in those days I should become rich enough to travel."

The word that tingled with gold soothed the suspicious ear of the officer.

"What is your business in America?"

"I am a plumber, now retired."

"And your business here?"

"Simply pleasure."

"You are forty?" said the officer, referring to the passports.

"Yes."

"This is rather young to retire from business."

"Not in America," easily.

"True, everybody grows rich there, with gold mines popping open at one's feet. It must be a great country." The officer sighed as he refolded the documents. "As soon as these are approved by his excellency the American consul, kindly have a porter bring them over to the bureau of police. It will be only a matter of form. I shall return them at once."

Grumbach produced a Louis Napoleon which was then as now acceptable that side of the Rhine. It was not done with pomposity, but rather with the exuberance of a man whose purse and letter of credit possess an assuring circumference.