when chased with a pursuing tongue. There were Pfeffernusse; there, were Lebkuchen; there were cheese-kuchen; plum-kuchen, peach-kuchen, Apfelkuchen, the juicy fruit stuck thickly into the crust, the whole dusted over with powdered sugar. There were Torten, and Hornchen, and butter cookies.
Blackie touched my arm, and I tore my gaze from a cherry-studded Schaumtorte that was being reverently packed for delivery.
“My, what a greedy girl! Now get your mind all made up. This is your chance. You know you’re supposed t’ take a slant at th’ things an’ make up your mind w’at you want before you go back w’ere th’ tables are. Don’t fumble this thing. When Olga or Minna comes waddlin’ up t’ you an’ says: `Nu, Fraulein?’ you gotta tell her whether your heart says plum-kuchen oder Nusstorte, or both, see? Just like that. Now make up your mind. I’d hate t’ have you blunder. Have you decided?”
“Decided! How can I?” I moaned, watching a black-haired, black-eyed Alsatian girl behind the counter as she rolled a piece of white paper into a cone and dipped a spoonful of whipped cream from a great brown bowl heaped high with the snowy stuff. She filled the paper cone, inserted the point of it into one end of a hollow pastry horn, and gently squeezed. Presto! A cream-filled Hornchen!
“Oh, Blackie!” I gasped. “Come on. I want to go in and eat.”
As we elbowed our way to the rear room separated from the front shop only by a flimsy wooden partition, I expected I know not what.
But surely this was not Blackie’s much-vaunted Baumbach’s! This long, narrow, dingy room, with its bare floor and its iron-legged tables whose bare marble tops were yellow with age and use! I said nothing as we seated ourselves. Blackie was watching me out of the tail of his eye. My glance wandered about the shabby, smoke-filled room, and slowly and surely the charm of that fusty, dingy little cafe came upon me.
A huge stove glowed red in one corner. On the wall behind the stove was suspended a wooden rack, black with age, its compartments holding German, Austrian and Hungarian newspapers. Against the opposite wall stood an ancient walnut mirror, and above it hung a colored print of Bismarck, helmeted, uniformed, and fiercely mustached. The clumsy iron-legged tables stood in two solemn rows down the length of the narrow room. Three or four stout, blond girls plodded back and forth, from tables to front shop, bearing trays of cakes and steaming cups of coffee. There was a rumble and clatter of German. Every one seemed to know every one else. A game of chess was in progress at one table, and between moves each contestant would refresh himself with a long-drawn, sibilant mouthful of coffee. There was nothing about the place or its occupants to remind one of America. This dim, smoky, cake-scented cafe was Germany.
“Time!” said Blackie. “Here comes Rosie to take our order. You can take your choice of coffee or chocolate. That’s as fancy as they get here.”
An expansive blond girl paused at our table smiling a broad welcome at Blackie.
“Wie geht’s, Roschen?” he greeted her. Roschen’s smile became still more pervasive, so that her blue eyes disappeared in creases of good humor. She wiped the marble table top with a large and careless gesture that precipitated stray crumbs into our laps. “Gut!” murmured she, coyly, and leaned one hand on a portly hip in an attitude of waiting.
“Coffee?” asked Blackie, turning to me. I nodded.
“Zweimal Kaffee?” beamed Roschen, grasping the idea.
“Now’s your time to speak up,” urged Blackie. “Go ahead an’ order all the cream gefillte things that looked good to you out in front.”
But I leaned forward, lowering my voice discreetly. “Blackie, before I plunge in too recklessly, tell me, are their prices very—”
“Sa-a-ay, child, you just can’t spend half a dollar here if you try. The flossiest kind of thing they got is only ten cents a order. They’ll smother you in whipped cream f’r a quarter. You c’n come in here an’ eat an’ eat an’ put away piles of cakes till you feel like a combination of Little Jack Horner an’ old Doc Johnson. An’ w’en you’re all through, they hand yuh your check, an’, say—it says forty-five cents. You can’t beat it, so wade right in an’ spoil your complexion.”
With enthusiasm I turned upon the patient Rosie. “O, bring me some of those cunning little round things with the cream on ‘em, you know—two of those, eh Blackie? And a couple of those with the flaky crust and the custard between, and a slice of that fluffy-looking cake and some of those funny cocked-hat shaped cookies—”
But a pall of bewilderment was slowly settling over Rosie’s erstwhile smiling face. Her plump shoulders went up in a helpless shrug, and she turned her round blue eyes appealingly to Blackie.
“Was meint sie alles?” she asked.
So I began all over again, with the assistance of Blackie. We went into minute detail. We made elaborate gestures. We drew pictures of our desired goodies on the marble-topped table, using a soft-lead pencil. Rosie’s countenance wore a distracted look. In desperation I was about to accompany her to the crowded shop, there to point out my chosen dainties when suddenly, as they would put it here, a light went her over.
“Ach, yes-s-s-s! Sie wollten vielleicht abgeruhrter Gugelhopf haben, und auch Schaumtorte, und Bismarcks, und Hornchen mit cream gefullt, nicht?”
“Certainly,” I murmured, quite crushed. Roschen waddled merrily off to the shop.
Blackie was rolling a cigarette. He ran his funny little red tongue along the edge of the paper and glanced up at me in glee. “Don’t bother about me,” he generously observed. “Just set still and let the atmosphere soak in.”
But already I was lost in contemplation of a red-faced, pompadoured German who was drinking coffee and reading the Fliegende Blatter at a table just across the way. There were counterparts of my aborigines at Knapf’s— thick spectacled engineers with high foreheads— actors and actresses from the German stock company— reporters from the English and German newspapers— business men with comfortable German consciences— long-haired musicians—dapper young lawyers—a giggling group of college girls and boys—a couple of smartly dressed women nibbling appreciatively at slices of Nusstorte—low-voiced lovers whose coffee cups stood untouched at their elbows, while no fragrant cloud of steam rose to indicate that there was warmth within. Their glances grow warmer as the neglected Kaffee grows colder. The color comes and goes in the girl’s face and I watch it, a bit enviously, marveling that the old story still should be so new.
At a large square table near the doorway a group of eight men were absorbed in an animated political discussion, accompanied by much waving of arms, and thundering of gutturals. It appeared to be a table of importance, for the high-backed bench that ran along one side was upholstered in worn red velvet, and every
