that ran along one side was
upholstered in worn red velvet, and every newcomer paused a moment to
nod or to say a word in greeting. It was not of American politics that
they talked, but of the politics of Austria and Hungary. Finally the
argument resolved itself into a duel of words between a handsome,
red-faced German whose rosy skin seemed to take on a deeper tone in
contrast to the whiteness of his hair and mustache, and a swarthy young
fellow whose thick spectacles and heavy mane of black hair gave him the
look of a caricature out of an illustrated German weekly. The red-faced
man argued loudly, with much rapping of bare knuckles on the table
top. But the dark man spoke seldom, and softly, with a little twisted
half-smile on his lips; and whenever he spoke the red-faced man grew
redder, and there came a huge laugh from the others who sat listening.

"Say, wouldn't it curdle your English?" Blackie laughed.

Solemnly I turned to him. "Blackie Griffith, these people do not even
realize that there is anything unusual about this."

"Sure not; that's the beauty of it. They don't need to make no
artificial atmosphere for this place; it just grows wild, like
dandelions. Everybody comes here for their coffee because their aunts
an' uncles and Grossmutters and Grosspapas used t' come, and come
yet, if they're livin'! An', after all, what is it but a little German
bakery?"

"But O, wise Herr Baumbach down in the kitchen! O, subtle Frau Baumbach
back of the desk!" said I. "Others may fit their shops with mirrors,
and cut-glass chandeliers and Oriental rugs and mahogany, but you sit
serenely by, and you smile, and you change nothing. You let the brown
walls grow dimmer with age; you see the marble-topped tables turning
yellow; you leave bare your wooden floor, and you smile, and smile, and
smile."

"Fine!" applauded Blackie. "You're on. And here comes Rosie."

Rosie, the radiant, placed on the table cups and saucers of an
unbelievable thickness. She set them down on the marble surface with a
crash as one who knows well that no mere marble or granite could shatter
the solidity of those stout earthenware receptacles. Napkins there were
none. I was to learn that fingers were rid of any clinging remnants of
cream or crumb by the simple expedient of licking them.

Blackie emptied his pitcher of cream into his cup of black, black
coffee, sugared it, stirred, tasted, and then, with a wicked gleam in
his black eyes he lifted the