That didn't sound so hard, so I took the egg card and went to the court-house, which was about six stations on the underground. The court-house was black with people madly rushing to and fro with cards in their hands, red cards, green cards, yellow cards and blue cards. There were soldiers, prosperous looking business men, maids, children, well-dressed women, and women with shawls on their heads. Guides were stationed everywhere, but the people did not seem to be able to find the room they wanted.
I asked a guide where the egg room was, and he pointed it out to me, "Eierzimmer 91." I had to go up five flights of stairs, for all the registering rooms were on the top floors. About seventy-five people were ahead of me waiting to be registered to buy eggs. It was about an hour before my turn came, and then I presented my card and said, "I would like to buy eggs from Herr Blumfeld on Pestalozzistrasse."
"Where is your Ausweiskarte?" the lady at the desk asked. I told her I had none and had never heard of one.
"I can't register you for eggs without an Ausweiskarte. So you will have to go home to your Portier and get one."
I took the underground and hurried home. The Portier said that he had no Ausweis, or permit cards, and that I would have to go to the bread commission and get it. After waiting at the bread commission in line for an hour, I succeeded in getting an Ausweis card, and then I rushed back to the magistrate. This time I had to wait only half an hour, and at last I came to the desk and was registered to buy an egg from Mr. Blumfeld of Pestalozzistrasse.
I had spent the whole day trying to get that egg, and I was happy in the thought that my efforts were not in vain. As I rode back on the underground I was trying to decide, "Would I eat my egg for breakfast or for dinner? Would I have it boiled or fried?" and then the awful thought came to me, "What if the egg was bad?" That would be too cruel!
It was just seventeen and a half minutes to eight when I got back to the egg shop of Herr Blumfeld. He was sweeping. I waved my card triumphantly, "I have it," I cried. He leaned his broom against the counter and pointed to a sign hanging over the stove, "Eier ausverkauft" (Eggs sold out). I looked at it, then staggered, and then fainted dead away in the greasy arms of the astonished Herr Blumfeld, Eier-Grosshändler.
WHAT THE GERMANS READ IN WAR TIME.
"Gobble! Ah a gobble!" That is what it sounds like when you hear the newspaper sellers crying out their wares on Potsdamer Platz in the evening. But this is really not what they are saying. They are saying, Abendausgabe or "Evening Edition."
It is a pretty sight, the Potsdamer Platz—cabs rattling along, jingling street-car bells, the square black with civilians and gray with soldiers, wagons drawn up to the sidewalks loaded down with bright-colored fruit and vegetables, women selling flowers—violets, roses, lilies-of-the-valley—Zehn Pfennige ein Sträusschen, and above all the other sounds the cries of "Gobble! Gobble Ah-a-gobble!"