meant for covering, and which rises over
the sleeper from a thick substratum of cotton coverlet, neatly buttoned
into the upper sheet, with the effect of a portly waistcoat.

The hotel was illumined by the kindly splendor of the uniformed portier,
who had met the travellers at the door, like a glowing vision of the
past, and a friendly air diffused itself through the whole house. At the
dinner, which, if not so cheap as they had somehow hoped, was by no means
bad, they took counsel with the English-speaking waiter as to what
entertainment Hamburg could offer for the evening, and by the time they
had drunk their coffee they had courage for the Circus Renz, which seemed
to be all there was.

The conductor of the trolley-car, which they hailed at the street corner,
stopped it and got off the platform, and stood in the street until they
were safely aboard, without telling them to step lively, or pulling them
up the steps; or knuckling them in the back to make them move forward. He
let them get fairly seated before he started the car, and so lost the fun
of seeing them lurch and stagger violently, and wildly clutch each other
for support. The Germans have so little sense of humor that probably no
one in the car would have been amused to see the strangers flung upon the
floor. No one apparently found it droll that the conductor should touch
his cap to them when he asked for their fare; no one smiled at their
efforts to make him understand where they wished to go, and he did not
wink at the other passengers in trying to find out. Whenever the car
stopped he descended first, and did not remount till the dismounting
passenger had taken time to get well away from it. When the Marches got
into the wrong car in coming home, and were carried beyond their street,
the conductor would not take their fare.

The kindly civility which environed them went far to alleviate the
inclemency of the climate; it began to rain as soon as they left the
shelter of the car, but a citizen of whom they asked the nearest way to
the Circus Renz was so anxious to have them go aright that they did not
mind the wet, and the thought of his goodness embittered March's
self-reproach for under-tipping the sort of gorgeous heyduk, with a staff
like a drum-major's, who left his place at the circus door to get their
tickets. He brought them back with a magnificent bow, and was then as
visibly disappointed with the share of the change returned to him as a
child