table at the head of the room. The rest of us sat at
small tables. Later I learned that they were all
engineers. At meals they discuss engineering problems in
the most awe-inspiring German. After supper they smoke
impossible German pipes and dozens of cigarettes. They
have bulging, knobby foreheads and bristling pompadours,
and some of the rawest of them wear wild-looking beards,
and thick spectacles, and cravats and trousers that Lew
Fields never even dreamed of. They are all graduates of
high-sounding foreign universities and are horribly
learned and brilliant, but they are the worst mannered
lot I ever saw.

In the silence that followed my entrance a
red-cheeked maid approached me and asked what I would
have for supper. Supper? I asked. Was not dinner served
in the evening? The aborigines nudged each other and
sniggered like fiendish little school-boys.

The red-cheeked maid looked at me pityingly. Dinner
was served in the middle of the day, naturlich. For
supper there was Wienerschnitzel, and kalter Aufschnitt,
also Kartoffel Salat, and fresh Kaffeekuchen.

The room hung breathless on my decision. I wrestled
with a horrible desire to shriek and run. Instead I
managed to mumble an order. The aborigines turned to one
another inquiringly.

"Was hat sie gesagt?" they asked. "What did she