minutes found myself in an open square behind the Bourse.

There I found a cab-rank with three or four cabs drawn up in line, the
horses somnolent, the drivers snoring inside their vehicles. I stirred
up the first and bade the driver take me to the Café Tarnowski.

Everyone who has been to Holland knows the Café Tarnowski at Rotterdam.
It is an immense place with hundreds of marble-topped tables tucked away
among palms under a vast glazed roof. Day or night it never closes: the
waiters succeed each other in shifts: day and night the great hall
resounds to the cry of orders, the patter of the waiters' feet, the
click of dominoes on the marble tables.

Delicious Dutch café au lait, a beefsteak and fried potatoes, most
succulent of all Dutch dishes, crisp white bread, hot from the midnight
baking, and appetizing Dutch butter, largely compensated for the thrills
of the night. Then I sent for some more coffee, black this time, and a
railway guide, and lighting a cigarette began to frame my plan of
campaign.

The train for Berlin left Rotterdam at seven in the morning. It was now
ten minutes past two, so I had plenty of time. From that night onward, I
told myself, I was a German, and from that moment I set myself
assiduously to _feel_ myself a German as well as enact the part.

"It's no use dressing a part," Francis used to say to me; "you must
_feel_ it as well. If I were going to disguise myself as a Berliner, I
should not be content to shave my head and wear a bowler hat with a
morning coat and get my nails manicured pink. I should begin by
persuading myself that I was the Lord of creation, that bad manners is a