out late was poisoned, every night, by the
dread of what I must meet at my front door--an indignant face, a
resentful face, the face of the _portier_. The _portier_ was a
tow-headed young German, twenty-two or three years old; and it had been
for some time apparent to me that he did not enjoy being hammered out of
his sleep, nights, to let me in. He never had a kind word for me, nor a
pleasant look. I couldn't understand it, since it was his business to be
on watch and let the occupants of the several flats in at any and all
hours of the night. I could not see why he so distinctly failed to get
reconciled to it.

The fact is, I was ignorantly violating, every night, a custom in which
he was commercially interested. I did not suspect this. No one had told
me of the custom, and if I had been left to guess it, it would have
taken me a very long time to make a success of it. It was a custom which
was so well established and so universally recognized, that it had all
the force and dignity of law. By authority of this custom, whosoever
entered a Berlin house after ten at night must pay a trifling toll to
the _portier_ for breaking his sleep to let him in. This tax was either
two and a half cents or five cents, I don't remember which; but I had
never paid it, and didn't know I owed it, and as I had been residing in
Berlin several weeks, I was so far in arrears that my presence in the
German capital was getting to be a serious disaster to that young
fellow.

I arrived from the imperial dinner sorrowful and anxious, made my
presence known and prepared myself to wait in patience the tedious
minute or two which the _portier_ usually allowed himself to keep me
tarrying--as a punishment. But this time there was no stage-wait; the
door was instantly unlocked, unbolted, unchained and flung wide; and in
it appeared the strange and welcome apparition of the _portier's_ round
face all sunshine and smiles and welcome, in place of the black frowns
and hostility that I was expecting. Plainly he had not come out of his
bed: he had been waiting for me, watching for me. He began to pour out
upon me in the most enthusiastic and energetic way a generous stream of
German welcome and homage, meanwhile dragging me excitedly to his small
bedroom beside the front door; there he made me bend down over a row of
German translations of my books and said,

"There--you wrote them! I have found it out! By God, I did not know it
before, and I ask a millio