"The one fault I have to find with European life is the poor quality of

tobacco used."

It was eight o'clock, Thursday night, the night of the dinner at

Müller's. I was dressing when Max entered, with a miserable cheroot

between his teeth.

"They say," he went on, "that in Russia they drink the finest tea in

the world, simply because it is brought overland and not by sea.

Unfortunately, tobacco--we Americans recognize no leaf as tobacco

unless it comes from Cuba--has to cross the sea, and is, in some

unaccountable manner, weakened in the transit. There are worse cigars

in Germany than in France, and I wouldn't have believed it possible, if

I had not gone to the trouble of proving it. Fine country! For a week

I've been trying to smoke the German quality of the weed, as a

preventive, but I see I must give it up on account of my throat. My

boy, I have news for you,"--tossing the cheroot into the grate.

"Fire away," said I, struggling with a collar.

"I have a box of Havanas over at the custom house that I forgot to bail

out."

"No!" said I joyfully. A Havana, and one of Scharfenstein's!

"I've an idea that they would go well with the dinner. So, if you

don't mind, I'll trot over and get 'em."

"Be sure and get around to Müller, at half-past eight, then," said I.

"I'll be there." He knew where to find the place.

Müller's Rathskeller was the rendezvous of students, officers and all

those persons of quality who liked music with their meat. The place

was low-ceilinged, but roomy, and the ventilation was excellent,

considering. The smoke never got so thick that one couldn't see the

way to the door when the students started in to "clean up the place,"

to use the happy idiom of mine own country. There were marble tables

and floors and arches and light, cane-bottomed chairs from Kohn's. It

was at once Bohemian and cosmopolitan, and, once inside, it was easy to

imagine oneself in Vienna. A Hungarian orchestra occupied an inclosed

platform, and every night the wail of the violin and the pom-pom of the

wool-tipped hammers on the Hungarian "piano" might be heard.

It was essentially a man's place of entertainment; few women ever had

the courage or the inclination to enter. In America it would have been

the fashion; but in the capital of Barscheit the women ate in the

restaurant above, which was attached to the hotel, and depended upon

the Volksgarten band for their evening's diversion.

You had to order your table hours ahead--that is, if you were a

civilian. If you were lucky enough to be an officer, you were

privileged to take any vacant chair you saw. But Heaven aid you if you

attempted to do this not being an officer! In Barscheit there were

also many unwritten laws, and you were obliged to observe these with

all the fidelity and attention that you gave to the enameled signs.

Only the military had the right to request the orchestra to repeat a

piece of music. Sometimes the lieutenants, seized with that gay humor

known only to cubs, would force the orchestra in Müller's to play the

Hungarian war-song till the ears cried out in pain. This was always

the case when any Austrians happened to be present. But ordinarily the

crowds were good-natured, boisterous, but orderly.




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