“I will go with you all the way. I will arrange everything. I speak German very well. Nothing will go wrong.”
Such a head waiter deserved encouragement. I encouraged him. He put on his best clothes, and came, smoking cigars He took us faultlessly through the German customs at the frontier. He superintended our first meal at a small German hotel. I asked him to join us at table. He bowed and accepted. When the meal was over, he rose and bowed again. It was a good meal. He took us through three tire-bursts amid the horrid wastes of Schleswig-Holstein. He escorted us into Friedrichstadt, and secured rooms for us at the hotel. Then he said he must return. No! no! We could not let him abandon us in the harsh monotony of that excessively tedious provincial town. But he murmured that he must depart. The yacht might not arrive for days yet. I shuddered.
“At any rate,” I said, “before you leave, inquire where the haven is, and take me to it, so that I may know how to find it.”
He complied. It was a small haven; a steamer and several ships were in it. Behind one ship I saw a mast and a red pennant somewhat in the style of the Velsa.
“There,” I said, “my yacht has a mast rather like that.”
I looked again. Utterly impossible that the Velsa could have arrived so quickly; but it was the Velsa. Joy! Almost tears of joy! I led the Ober on board. He said solemnly:
“It is very beautiful.”
So it was.
But our things were at the hotel. We had our rooms engaged at the hotel.
The Ober said: