XXIII. — COINCIDENCE
Max took us down into a German place into the bowels of the earth. It was a bit of Berlin transplanted to Philadelphia and thriving beneath a Teutonic eating-house. Imagine a great cellar, with stone floor, ornamented ceiling, massive rectangular pillars of brown wood, substantial tables, heavy mediaeval chairs, crossbeams bearing pictures of peasant girls and lettered with sentiments of good cheer in German, and walls covered with beer-mugs of every size and device.
Scores of men sat talking at the tables, smoking, devouring sandwiches, upturning their mugs of beer over the capacious receptacles provided by nature.
The mediaeval chairs appealed to the romanticism that lies beneath Breffny's satirical exterior; and when Max called our attention to the fact that the mugs of beer came through apertures from caves beneath the street, we were content.
For the hour, the problem of human happiness was solved for us three by three foaming mugs, three sandwiches, and tobacco.
Here communed we three, blown from various winds, to this local Bohemia: Max, native of the free German City of Frankfort, operatic manager in Rio Janeiro, musician in New York, Denver resident by adoption, Philadelphia newspaperman by preference; Breffny, born in a Spanish village, reared in Continental countries, professedly an Irishman, but more than half-Latin in temperament and appearance, a cyclopedia for the benefit of his friends, and myself.
The talk ran to the imposture recently attempted by young Mr. Herdling, who claimed that the dead body found at Tarrytown was that of his wife.
“A very touching fake,” said Max.
“Yes; thanks to the skill of the reporters who wrote up his story,” cried Breffny.
“We visited many morgues in search of her, Louise and I,” said I, quoting the most effective passage of the narrative.