“Oh, certainly, certainly. To be sure. A room. Certainly. Wait. I will call my wife.”
He went into a back chamber, leaving me to face several curious natives who went over me from head to toe with their eyes.
“Mah-ree-ah!” I heard my landlord calling quite loudly in the rear portion of the house. “There is one here who wants a room. Have we a room ready?”
I heard no reply.
Presently he came back, however, and said in a high-flown, deliberate way, “Be seated. Are you from Frankfort?”
“Yes, and no. I come from America.”
“O-o-oh! America. What part of America?”
“New York.”
“O-o-oh—New York. That is a great place. I have a brother in America. Since six years now he is out there. I forget the place.” He put his hand to his foolish, frizzled head and looked at the floor.
His wife now appeared, a stout, dull woman, one of the hard-working potato specimens of the race. A whispered conference between them followed, after which they announced my room would soon be ready.