"Don't they?" Trinkmann grunted.
"Not at the waiters, Trinkmann," Max said significantly. "And the food is all right, too, Trinkmann. The only thing is, Trinkmann, when a feller got a nice gemütlicher place like you got it here, y'understand, he should do his bestest that he keeps it that way."
Trinkmann's smile became a trifle less forced at Max's use of the adjective gemütlicher, for which the English language has no just equivalent, since it at once combines the meanings of cozy, comfortable, good-natured, and homelike.
"Certainly, I am always trying to keep my place gemütlich, Mr. Maikafer," Trinkmann declared, "but when you got waiters, Mr. Maikafer, which they——"
"Waiters ain't got nothing to do with it, Trinkmann," Max interrupted. "On Sutter Avenue, Brownsville, in boom times already was a feller—still a good friend of mine—by the name Ringentaub, which runs a restaurant, Trinkmann, and everybody goes there on account he keeps a place which you could really say was gemütlich. The chairs was old-fashioned, mit cane seats into 'em, which they sagged in the right place, so that if you was sitting down, y'understand, you knew you was sitting down, not like some chairs which I seen it in restaurants, Trinkmann, which if you was sitting down, you might just as well be standing up for all the comfort you get out of it."
"The chairs here is comfortable," Trinkmann remarked.
"Sure, I know," Max continued. "Then in this here restaurant was tables which they only got 'em in the old country—big, heavy tables, understand me, which you pretty near kill yourself trying to move 'em at all. A feller sits at such a table, Trinkmann, and right away he thinks he must drink a cup coffee; and not alone that, Trinkmann, but he must got to order coffee for the crowd. He couldn't even help himself, Trinkmann, because such a table makes you feel good to look at it. That's what it is to keep a gemütlicher place, Trinkmann."
Trinkmann nodded and sat down at Max's table.
"Furthermore, Trinkmann," Max continued, "everything in the place was the same. The ashtrays was from brass like them there ashtrays you used to got here, Trinkmann."
Max looked meaningly at the burnished brass utensil that stood in the middle of the table.