"I expect to meet a couple of my friends and should be very glad to have you come along," he added cordially.
I cheerfully accepted this opportunity of making some acquaintances in a city the size of Vienna. We boarded a street car, received a transfer about the dimensions of an American Sunday newspaper, changed to another line and were soon at a café, where I was introduced to his two friends.
These three Austrians were clean-cut chaps of the middle class. During the evening I learned that their occupations were respectively piano-tuner, barber and window-trimmer. To add an American tramp to this trio made, I thought, a rather extraordinary assortment of vocations. The prospects for a lively evening looked very gloomy, for the combined wealth of such an aggregation was naturally small. We dined at a big restaurant and then set out to see the town.
First we lodged ourselves in one of Vienna's large cafés, where we remained for two hours watching the fascinating crowds and listening to the music. During this time we had but one glass each of the delicious Vienna coffee and when I suggested that it was only right that we should continue to buy while sitting at a table and enjoying ourselves my companions assured me that it was all right to spend a whole evening in a café with the purchase of but one drink, for every one did it. As an American this seemed strange to me, to say the least. I confess that I felt rather sheepish about it.
The barber and the piano-tuner bade us farewell and the window-trimmer and I started out to see Vienna by moonlight. I shortly discovered that the party was to be at my expense for, as poor as I was, I was a rich man compared to my Austrian companion who from his vocation received a salary of twenty dollars a month. However, I was willing to carry him for a while as he was not only good company but served as an excellent guide.
The places we left unseen in the night life of Vienna do not exist. My window-trimmer friend certainly knew the town and led me into all the cafés and joints he could find. We were ready for anything and after a general round of the more respectable places we heard of a large public ball which was being held in the opposite side of the city, and thither we decided to go. The late Hinky Dink's dances in Chicago or the "Chickens' Ball" given in honour of an ex-pugilist in San Francisco might be considered the last word in refinement compared with this Vienna function. It would be indiscreet to go into a detailed description of this "social" affair for fear of infringing on the American postal laws. The immense hall was crowded with representatives of Vienna's underworld. The women were attired in short skirts, tights and one-piece bathing suits. Liquor was so plentiful that it rose and fell like the ocean tide. The rag, the turkey trot and other modern dances of America, which are the subject of so much criticism, would look like devotional exercises alongside of the steps that were executed at this four-in-the-morning function.
The daytime I spent by myself seeing the more ennobling sights of the city, while my Viennese pal arranged neckties, collars, shirts and pajamas in the windows of a large clothing store. With the aid of Baedeker I made as thorough an investigation of the daylight sights of the city as I had made of those of the night.
Each evening I met my native friend. One night we went for dinner to a quiet little restaurant, where we made the acquaintance of a floorwalker in one of the large department stores of the metropolis and his elderly fiancée, who were seated at the same table with us. They were an interesting pair. It was a mystery to the woman why I should have wanted to come to Austria when America was such a fine country. "You must be very rich to be able to travel around the world," was a remark she made—a remark I had heard probably five hundred times during my trip.
On the way to the café the window-trimmer and I were approached by a street vendor who was selling plaster of paris busts of the famous men of Austria.
"How much are they?" I enquired.