Page:Letters from Abroad to Kindred at Home (Volume 1).djvu/172

Rh a register of thee arrivals within the last three days, for which you pay a penny. I observe the new-comers always buy one, liking, perhaps, for once in their lives, to see their names in print. The carte à vinwine trolley [sic] is then presented, and, if you please, you may select an excellent Rhine wine for twenty-five cents a bottle, or you may pay the prices we pay at home for Burgundy and Champagne. These preliminaries over, the dinner begins, and occupies between one and two hours, never less than an hour and a half. The meats are placed on the table, then taken off, carved, and offered to each guest. You see none of those eager looks or hasty movements that betray the anxieties of our people lest a favourite dish should escape. A German eats as long and as leisurely as he pleases at one thing, sure that all will be offered to him in turn; and they are the most indefatigable of eaters; not a meat, not a vegetable comes on table which they do not partake. A single plate of the cabbage saturated with grease that I have seen a German lady eat, would, as our little S. said when she squeezed the chicken to death, have "deaded" one of our dyspeptics "very dead;" and this plate of cabbage is one of thirty varieties. The quiet and order of the table are admirable. The servants are never in a hurry, and never blunder. You know what angry, pathetic, and bewildering calls of "Waiter!" "Waiter.'" we hear at our tables. I have never heard the call of "Kelner!" from a German.