* * * * *
I had no trouble with trunks and bags other than opening them and being compelled to look as though I thought it a crime to tip anybody. I strolled about the station in the early light of a clear, soft day and speculated on this matter of national temperaments. What a pity, I thought, if Holland were ever annexed by Germany or France or any country and made to modify its individuality. Before I was done with it I was inclined to believe that its individuality would never be modified, come any authority that might.
The balance of the trip to Amsterdam was nothing, a matter of two hours, but it visualized all I had fancied concerning Holland. Such a mild little land it is. So level, so smooth, so green. I began to puzzle out the signs along the way; they seemed such a hodge-podge of German and English badly mixed, that I had to laugh. The train passed up the center of a street in one village where cool brick pavements fronted cool brick houses and stores, and on one shop window appeared the legend: “Haar Sniden.” Would not that as a statement of hair-cutting make any German-American laugh? “Telefoon,” “stoom boot,” “treins noor Ostend,” “land te koop” (for sale) and the like brought a mild grin of amusement.
When we reached Amsterdam I had scarcely time to get a sense of it before I was whisked away in an electric omnibus to the hotel; and I was eager to get there, too, in order to replenish my purse which was now without a single penny. The last mark had gone to the porter at the depot to carry my bags to this ’bus. I was being deceived as to the character of the city by this ride from the central station to the hotel, for curiously its course gave not a glimpse of the canals that are the most charming and pleasing features of Amsterdam—more so than in any other city in Holland.
And now what struggles for a little ready money! My bags and fur coat had been duly carried into the hotel and I had signified to the porter in a lordly way that he should pay the ’busman, but seeing that I had letters which might result in local invitations this very day a little ready cash was necessary.
“I tell you what I should like you to do,” I observed to the clerk, after I had properly entered my name and accepted a room. “Yesterday in Berlin, until it was too late, I forgot to draw any money on my letter of credit. Let me have forty gulden and I will settle with you in the morning.”
“But, my dear sir,” he said, very doubtfully indeed and in very polite English, “I do not see how we can do that. We do not know you.”
“It is surely not so unusual,” I suggested ingratiatingly, “you must have done it before. You see my bags and trunk are here. Here is my letter of credit. Let me speak to the manager.”
The dapper Dutchman looked at my fur coat and bags quite critically, looked at my letter of credit as if he felt sure it was a forgery and then retired into an inner office. Presently a polished creature appeared, dark, immaculate, and after eyeing me solemnly, shook his head. “It can’t be done,” he said.
He turned to go.