After the knight had departed the duke tapped the page on the shoulder and said, "Take care that thou dost not repent thy word, and that the Brunswicker does not win the wager."
The first morning in May the Brunswicker rode into the castle and was welcomed by the duke. All eyes were turned on the cup-bearer, who shortly afterward appeared with a suite of pages carrying on a bier two little casks, one bearing the Bavarian arms and the other those of Brunswick. The right to give to the contents of the former a particular name was reserved to the duke. The page produced likewise a monstrous silver bumper and three beakers of the ordinary size. It was long before the bumper was filled to the rim, and then it required two men to raise it to the table. In the mean time another page placed the three beakers before the knight, who could not suppress a sarcastic laugh at the huge bumper which the page, taking in his strong arms, placed to his lips. As the knight emptied the last beaker the cup-bearer turned down the bumper. Two needles and a bundle of silk lay on the table. It wanted a few moments of the half hour, and the Brunswicker ran toward the garden for fresh air. Hardly arrived in the court, a peculiar swimming of the head seized him, so that he fell to the ground. A servant saw him from the window, and hastened out, followed by the court, with the duke in advance. There lay the Brunswicker, and tried in vain to rise.
"By all the saints, Herr Ritter, what has thrown you in the sand?" inquired the duke sympathetically.
"The bock, the bock" (the goat, the goat), murmured the knight with a heavy tongue.
A burst of sarcastic laughter echoed in the courtyard. In the mean time the page stood on one foot, and without swaying threaded the needle.
"The bock, the bock," repeated the duke smiling. "Our beer is no longer without a name. It shall be called bock, that one may take care."
The bock season lasts about six weeks, from May into June. Just before it commences a transparency of a goat, drinking from a tall, slender glass, is placed as a sign before certain beer locals, called in Munich dialect bock stalls, not because goats are kept there, but because wonderful beer, called bock, is dispensed.
He who has not lived in Bavaria can have no idea of what importance beer is in Bavarian life. There are in Munich Germans who exist only for beer, and there have been pointed out to me old gentlemen who have frequented daily the same local for twenty-five or thirty years, and even occupied the same seat, and pounded the same table, by way of enforcing their views, in discussing the politics of the day. They are called Stammgäste (literally stock guests), and are much honored in their respective locals.
The greatest personages do not disdain the meanest locals, provided the beer is good and to their taste. Naked pine tables do not disgust them, nor the hardest benches. Often on the table skins of radishes, crusts of bread, cigar stumps, tobacco ashes, herring heads, and cheese rinds form a fragrant mélange. The inheritors of this precious legacy push it away without undue irritability. Radishes are carried about by old women called radi-weibers, who do a thriving business besides in nuts and herrings. One cannot find in any other country of the world radishes of such size, tenderness, and flavor—a brown variety inherited by the happy Müncheners with their breweries. Nowhere else does cutting and salting them rank as an art. To prepare one scientifically they pare it carefully, slit it in three slices nearly to the end, place salt on the top, and draw the finger over it, as if it were a pack of cards. The salt falls between the slices, and when they are pressed together becomes absorbed.
In a German Bier Local are represented all classes of society. Beer is the great leveller of social distinctions. The foaming glass of King Gambrinus unites all Germans of all states, climates, and professions in a closer brotherhood than the sceptre of the Hohenzollerns, and links that portion of the Teutonic race over which the stars and stripes throws its protecting folds to the dear fatherland.