irium tremens, boils, hookworm,
smallpox, distemper, measles or what the _Monatsbericht_ calls "liver
sickness." The Muencheners perish more elegantly, more charmingly than
that. When their time comes it is gout that fetches them, or
appendicitis, or neurasthenia, or angina pectoris; or perchance they cut
their throats.

Thirdly, and to make it short, lastly, the late Henrik Ibsen,
nourished upon Munich beer, wrote "Hedda Gabler," not to mention
"Rosmersholm" and "The Lady from the Sea"--wrote them in his flat in the
Maximilianstrasse overlooking the palace and the afternoon promenaders,
in the late eighties of the present, or Christian era--wrote them there
and then took them to the Cafe Luitpold, in the Briennerstrasse, to
ponder them, polish them and make them perfect. I myself have sat in old
Henrik's chair and victualed from the table. It is far back in the main
hall of the cafe, to the right as you come in, and hidden from the
incomer by the glass vestibule which guards the pantry. Ibsen used to
appear every afternoon at three o'clock, to drink his vahze of Loewenbraeu
and read the papers. The latter done, he would sit in silence, thinking,
thinking, planning, planning. Not often did he say a word, even to
Fraeulein Mizzi, his favourite _kellnerin_. So taciturn was he, in truth,
that his rare utterances were carefully entered in the archives of the
cafe and are now preserved there. By the courtesy of Dr. Adolph
Himmelheber, the present curator, I am permitted to transcribe a few,
the imperfect German of the poet being preserved:

November 18, 1889, 4:15 P.M.--_Giebt es kein Feuer in diese verfluchte
Bierstube? Meine Fuesse sind so kalt wie Eiszapfen!_

April 12, 1890, 5:20 P.M.--_Der Kerl is verrueckt!_ (Said of an American
who entered with the stars and stripes flying from his hat.)

May 22, 1890, 4:40 P.M.--_Sie sind so eselhaft wie ein Schauspieler!_
(To an assistant Herr Wirt who brought him a Socialist paper in mistake
for the London _Times_.)

Now and then the great man would condescend to play a game of billiards
in the hall to the rear, usually with some total stranger. He would
point out the stranger to Fraeulein Mizzi and she would carry his card.
The game would proceed, as a rule, in utter silence. But it was for the
Loewenbraeu and not for the billiards that Ibsen came to the Luitpold, for
the Loewenbraeu and the high flights of soul that it engendered. He had no
great liking for Munich as a city;