At the top of the next page a street address gave her a sudden pleasurable thrill:
18/a Fürstenstrasse,
München, Deutschland.
“Oh!” Gorgas gasped in delight. “He really did write from Germany, after all.”
“Mein Kindschen,” it began. “Frau Schloss talked of your letter even before she would arrange the price of breakfasts and bed. There has been a great to do over your letter. It came several days before I arrived. And it was a bulky document—thick, extravagant American letter-paper is to the German mind like feeding lamb chops to stray dogs. And it lacked stamps mightily.
“The question that confronted the Frau Schloss, the Herr Schloss, the Gemüse Frau, who keeps a green-grocery below stairs, and the Herr Postman—the question that has stirred them for the past fortnight is whether it is a safe investment to pay the overdue postage, trusting that the Herr Professor would later make restitution plus trinkgeld; or deny all knowledge of the Herr Professor and throw the responsibility upon the efficient German postal service. Well! They decided that the Herr Professor would be an easy American mark, as he had been on former visits; so they paid out real money, received the letter, and took the big risk that I might not have recovered from the American madness of paying large sums with a smile.
“As I arrived in the Fürstenstrasse, Frau Schloss saw me from the window above the green-grocery and hastened down the dark stair and through the darker alley of a vestibule (where the Gemüse Frau keeps her push-cart) to meet me breathless in front of the Vegetable Lady’s display.
“‘I suppose I may have my old rooms?’ I asked, after the first formal greetings.
“‘Oh, the letter, my honored Herr Professor!’ she began tragically.
“‘Ah!’ I caught her up. ‘I cannot have the rooms then? I’m sorry.’
“‘Yes! yes!’ she assured me, ‘Yes, honored Herr Professor. The rooms are ready. And the letter is ready, too! It came a week ago. We have kept it for you—’