“No, no,” I replied irritably. (This matter was getting to be a sore point with me.) “I have just come from Mayence. I am looking for Mayen. Isn’t it over there somewhere?” I pointed to the fields over the river.
He shook his head. “Mayen!” he said. “I don’t think there is such a place.”
“Good heavens!” I exclaimed, “what are you talking about? Here it is on the map. What is that? Do you live here in Coblenz?”
“Gewiss!” he replied. “I live here.”
“Very good, then. Where is Mayen?”
“I have never heard of it,” he replied.
“My God!” I exclaimed to myself, “perhaps it was destroyed in the Franco-Prussian War. Maybe there isn’t any Mayen.”
“You have lived here all your life,” I said, turning to my informant, “and you have never heard of Mayen?”
“Mayen, no. Mayence, yes. It is up the river near Frankfort.”
“Don’t tell me that again!” I said peevishly, and walked off. The elusiveness of my father’s birthplace was getting on my nerves. Finally I found a car-line which ended at the river and a landing wharf and hailed the conductor and motorman who were idling together for a moment.