o could not suppress a sarcastic laugh at the huge
bumper which the page, taking in his strong arms, placed to his lips. As
the knight emptied the last beaker the cup-bearer turned down the
bumper. Two needles and a bundle of silk lay on the table. It wanted a
few moments of the half hour, and the Brunswicker ran toward the garden
for fresh air. Hardly arrived in the court, a peculiar swimming of the
head seized him, so that he fell to the ground. A servant saw him from
the window, and hastened out, followed by the court, with the duke in
advance. There lay the Brunswicker, and tried in vain to rise.

"By all the saints, Herr Ritter, what has thrown you in the sand?"
inquired the duke sympathetically.

"The bock, the bock" (the goat, the goat), murmured the knight with a
heavy tongue.

A burst of sarcastic laughter echoed in the courtyard. In the mean time
the page stood on one foot, and without swaying threaded the needle.

"The bock, the bock," repeated the duke smiling. "Our beer is no longer
without a name. It shall be called bock, that one may take care."

The bock season lasts about six weeks, from May into June. Just before
it commences a transparency of a goat, drinking from a tall, slender
glass, is placed as a sign before certain beer locals, called in Munich
dialect bock stalls, not because goats are kept there, but because
wonderful beer, called bock, is dispensed.

He who has not lived in Bavaria can have no idea of what importance beer
is in Bavarian life. There are in Munich Germans who exist only for
beer, and there have been pointed out to me old gentlemen who have
frequented daily the same local for twenty-five or thirty years, and
even occupied the same seat, and pounded the same table, by way of
enforcing their views, in discussing the politics of the day. They are
called _Stammgaeste_ (literally stock guests), and are much honored in
their respective locals.

The greatest personages do not disdain the meanest locals, provided the
beer is good and to their taste. Naked pine tables do not disgust them,
nor the hardest benches. Often on the table skins of radishes, crusts of
bread, cigar stumps, tobacco ashes, herring heads, and cheese rinds form
a fragrant _melange_. The inheritors of this precious legacy push it
away without undue irritability. Radishes are carried about by old women
called _radi-weibers_, who do a thriving business besides in nuts and
herrings. One cannot find in any other co