“Es tut mir leid, Junge,” he puffed, with a prolonged blink, “I am sorry, but we have not a bed left in the house.”
I wandered out into the night and told my story to a second, a third, and even a fourth innkeeper with the same result. In despair I turned in at the fifth house resolved to try a strange plan—to tell the truth. In carefully chosen words I explained my identity and my purpose in visiting Germany in laborer’s garb. Never before since leaving Detroit had I resorted to such an expedient, and I took good care not to repeat the experiment during my subsequent travels. I had barely elucidated my situation when the landlord informed me in no uncertain terms that I was a liar and an ass into the bargain; and that a hasty retreat from his establishment was the surest way of preserving my good health. He was a creature of awe-inspiring proportions, and I followed his suggestion promptly. At midnight a policeman directed me to an inn where suspicious characters were less of a novelty, and I was soon asleep.
I had not yet well learned the lesson, begun in the British Isles, that the homes of the famous of a century ago are the slums of to-day. Next morning I turned back to the brilliant thoroughfares, expecting to find somewhere along them the birthplace of Goethe. Once amid such surroundings as the greatest of the Germans might fittingly have graced by his presence, I addressed myself to a policeman. Goethe? Why, yes, the name seemed familiar. He was not sure, but he fancied the fellow lived in the eastern part of the city, and directed me accordingly. The way led through narrow, winding streets. Now and then I went astray, to be set right again by other minions of the law. The quest cost me a goodly amount of shoe-leather and most of the morning, but I found at last the landmark I was seeking—exactly across the street from the inn in which I had slept.
There was in Frankfurt after all a lodging house where wanderers free from the burden of wealth were welcome. I came across it during the day’s roaming and took care not to forget its location. Several disreputable humans were wending their way thither as twilight fell and, joining them, I entered a great, dingy hall, low of ceiling, and poorly served in the matter of windows. A cadaverous female, established behind a rust-eaten wicket, was dealing out Schlafmarken at thirty Pfennig (7 cents) each. I pocketed one and hastened to find a place on one of the wooden benches; for the hall was rapidly filling with members of the Brotherhood of the Great Unwashed.
Drowsiness came quickly in the stifling atmosphere. I stepped to the wicket and asked to be shown to my quarters.
“What!” croaked the hollow-eyed matron, “bed? You can’t sleep yet. Wait till you hear the bell at ten-thirty.”
I turned back to the bench only to find that another squatter had jumped my claim. Too sleepy to stand unaided, I hung myself up against the wall and waited. If the dreams from which I was aroused were not much shorter than they seemed, several days passed before there sounded the sudden clang of an iron-voiced bell. The resulting stampede carried me to the second floor.
In an evilly-ventilated room, lower of ceiling than the hall below, I found that cot thirty-seven, to which I had been assigned, could be reached only by climbing over several of the sixty which as many men in varying stages of insobriety were preparing to occupy. By a series of contortions, in the execution of which I often thumped with my elbows the man behind me and displaced my cot sufficiently to cause the downfall of my opposite neighbor, whose equilibrium was far from stable, I succeeded in removing my shoes and coat. To venture further in the disrobing process seemed undesirable. I spread my germ-proof jacket across the animated coverlet and lay down. Before the last sot had ceased his maudlin grumbling there broke out here and there in the room a dialogue of snores. Rapidly it increased to a chorus. In ten minutes the ensemble would have put to shame the most atrocious steam calliope ever inflicted upon a defenceless public. Reiterated kicks and punches reduced to comparative silence the few slumberers within reach; by shying one shoe at a distant sleeper whose specialty was a nerve-racking falsetto and the other at a fellow whose deep bass set the cots to trembling in sympathy, I brought a moment’s respite. But the dread of going forth in the morning unshod drove me on an expedition across the bodies of my roommates and, by the time I had recovered my footwear, the chorus was again swelling forth in Wagnerian volume. I gave up in despair and settled down on the hill and dale mattress to convince myself that I was sleeping in spite of the infernal bedlam.
There runs a proverb, the origin of which is lost among the traditions of hoar antiquity, to the effect that misfortunes travel in bands. That it is true I have never doubted since the day following that broken-backed night in Frankfurt. It was curiosity that called down upon my head this new adversity, for naught else could have moved me to investigate the secrets hidden behind a fourth-class ticket to Weimar. In all the countries of Europe there is nothing that compares with the fourth-class railway service of Germany. The necessity of providing some mode of transportation cheaper than walking may be an excuse for its perpetration, but woe betide the unsuspecting traveler who, for mere matter of economy, abandons for this system that of our ancient forebears.
Intending to take the nine o’clock train, I purchased a ticket about eight-forty and stepped out upon the platform just in time to hear a guard bellow the German variation of “all aboard.” The Weimar train stood close at hand. As I stepped towards it, four policemen, strutting about the platform, let out simultaneous war-whoops, and sprang after me.