Page:Diary of a Pilgrimage (1891).pdf/72

 prayers; and, in them, it is good to sit awhile and have communion with her.

We strolled round, before we came out. Just by the entrance to the choir an official stopped me, and asked me if I wanted to go and see a lot of fal-lal things he had got on show—relics and bones, and old masters, and such-like Wardour-street rubbish.

I told him, "No"; and attempted to pass on, but he said:

"No, no! You don't pay, you don't go in there," and shut the gate.

He said this sentence in English; and the precision and fluency with which he delivered it rather suggested the idea that it was a phrase much in request, and one that he had had a good deal of practice in.

It is very prevalent throughout Germany, this custom of not allowing you to go in to see a thing unless you pay.