Page:McClure's Magazine volume 10.djvu/22

German Type.

empty milk-cans, are climbing the trails that lead back to their respective ranches, which they must have left, their cans laden, at early dawn.

The men are most polite to each other, and always take off their hats as they meet and pass. The employés in the hotels do this, from the manager down. Indeed, all these people are almost tiresome with their politeness. A table-girl who serves you at a wayside café to-day will rush out to the middle of the street to-morrow and say good-morning, and ask you how you feel. She is honestly endeavoring to make it pleasant, and is unconsciously making it unpleasant for you. If you speak English she argues that you may be a lord, or, what to her and for her is better still, an American, grand, rich, and awful; and she is proud to show the proprietor or manager that she knows you. But we should not complain, for nowhere are visitors treated so respectfully and decently as at Karlsbad. I remember that the Bürgermeister left his place at the head of the table at the banquet, crossed the room, introduced himself to Mr. Thompson, touched glasses, and bade him welcome to the city, and caused a little municipal check-book to be placed at the visitor's elbow, so that for that day and date he could order what he craved, and it was all "on" the town. Last year, when the five hundred rooms of the largest hotel in the place were occupied, four hundred of the guests were Americans or English. So you see they can afford to like us, and they do.

One can live here as one chooses—for one dollar or ten a day; but two people can live comfortably for five dollars a day. The hotels are good, and the service almost perfect so far as it relates to the hotel; but the service in the dining-rooms, cafés, and restaurants is bad. Many of these are so poorly arranged. It is a common thing to see a waiter freighting your breakfast or dinner—which is at midday here—a half block in a pouring rain. The great trouble is to get things hot; it is next to impossible. What Karlsbad needs is a sanitarium, where people can have delicate dishes prepared and served hot. The stoves are too far from the tables in most places.

Americans will find many funny little things, even in the best hotels. You can go up in the elevator, but you cannot come down. You can have writing-paper free in the writing-room, but not in your apartments. You can get hot milk or warm milk—but they will put butter in it. You can have boiled potatoes, but only with caraway-seeds and a fine flavor of alfalfa in them; or poached eggs, but you must have them poached in bouillon.

After a while you will get used to all this, and give up trying to say sehr heiss, and go way. Forty thousand people do this every year. This establishment alone feeds two thousand people a day; and most of them, I fancy, go away feeling very kindly toward the place and the people. The Germans predominate in the month of May, the Austrians in June, and in July the French come. This is a safe sandwich, with Austria in the middle; it keeps France and Germany from touching. The English and Americans (but not the poor) they have all the season.

… old, gouty Germans …