THE REMINISCENCES OF CARL SCHURZ
endurable. So it was with us. Of course it appeared to me that Strodtmann was the greater sinner, and in this I was not altogether wrong. He was somewhat of a gourmet; he would study the delicacies exposed in the show-windows of restaurants with great enthusiasm and discernment, and he imagined that he himself could prepare fine dishes. He therefore made on our grate-fire all sorts of experiments in roasting and frying and filled the room with very unwelcome odors. He insisted also on preparing our coffee, for he was sure that he knew much better to do that than I or anybody else. To this assumption I should have offered no resistance whatever; but as he handled the burning alcohol of his machine very carelessly it happened that he set on fire papers and clothes that were lying around everywhere, and finally he burnt a big hole into the most valuable article of my wardrobe, namely, that large cloak with the hood, belonging to my Baden officer's period. We laughed together about his awkwardness, but after this catastrophe we agreed in the most amicable spirit that there was not room enough in one apartment for two persons as disorderly as ourselves. I therefore rented a room on the Quai Saint-Michel, No. 17, and Strodtmann settled down in the Latin Quarter in my neighborhood.
The house No. 17 Quai Saint-Michel was kept by a widow, Mme. Petit, and her daughters, two unmarried ladies no longer young. The house was in all things decent, respectable, and strictly regulated. In this regard it distinguished itself advantageously from most of the hotel garnis in the Latin Quarter. Those of Mme. Petit's tenants whose conduct was especially correct were rewarded with invitations, from time to time, to take tea in her little salon, where the presence of the two faded daughters and some friends of the family created an atmosphere of extraordinary dullness. After having gone through that
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