noisy and cheerful. The Fräu-Wirtin preferred waitresses, and this
preference was shared by her patrons. They were quicker, cleaner; they
remembered an order better; they were not always surreptitiously
emptying the dregs of tankards on the way to the bar, as men invariably
did. Besides, the barmaid was an English institution, and the
Fräu-Wirtin greatly admired that race, though no one knew why. The girls
fully able to defend themselves, and were not at all diffident in boxing
a smart fellow's ears. They had a rough wit and could give and take. If
a man thought this an invitation and tried to take a kiss, he generally
had his face slapped for his pains, and the Fräu-Wirtin was always on
the side of her girls.

The smoke was so thick one could scarcely see two tables away, and if
any foreigner chanced to open a window there was a hubbub; windows were
made for light, not air. There were soldiers, non-commissioned
officers--for the fall maneuvers brought many to Dreiberg--farmers and
their families, and the men of the locality who made the Black Eagle a
kind of socialist club. Socialism was just taking hold in those days,
and the men were tremendously serious and secretive regarding it, as it
wasn't strong enough to be popular with governments which ruled by
hereditary might and right.

Gretchen came in, a little better dressed than in the daytime, the
change consisting of coarse stockings and shoes of leather, of which she
was correspondingly proud.

"Will you want me, Fräu-Wirtin, for a little while to-night?" she asked.

"Till nine. Half a crown as usual."