Chapter 1 - Page 2

economy in Frankfort. I had brought
from home a box containing a thousand very cheap cigars. By way of
experiment, I stepped into a little shop in a queer old back street,
took four gaily decorated boxes of wax matches and three cigars, and
laid down a silver piece worth 48 cents. The man gave me 43 cents
change.

In Frankfort everybody wears clean clothes, and I think we noticed that
this strange thing was the case in Hamburg, too, and in the villages
along the road. Even in the narrowest and poorest and most ancient
quarters of Frankfort neat and clean clothes were the rule. The little
children of both sexes were nearly always nice enough to take into a
body's lap. And as for the uniforms of the soldiers, they were newness
and brightness carried to perfection. One could never detect a smirch
or a grain of dust upon them. The street-car conductors and drivers wore
pretty uniforms which seemed to be just out of the bandbox, and their
manners were as fine as their clothes.

In one of the shops I had the luck to stumble upon a book which has
charmed me nearly to death. It is entitled THE LEGENDS OF THE RHINE FROM
BASLE TO ROTTERDAM, by F. J. Kiefer; translated by L. W. Garnham, B.A.

All tourists MENTION the Rhine legends--in that sort of way which
quietly pretends that the mentioner has been familiar with them all his
life, and that the reader cannot possibly be ignorant of them--but no
tourist ever TELLS them. So this little book fed me in a very hungry
place; and I, in my turn, intend to feed my reader, with one or
two little lunches from the same larder. I shall not mar Garnharn's
translation by meddling with its English; for the most toothsome thing
about it is its quaint fashion of building English sentences on the
German plan--and punctuating them accordingly to no plan at all.

In the chapter devoted to "Legends of Frankfort," I find the following:

"THE KNAVE OF BERGEN"

"In Frankfort at the Romer was a great mask-ball, at the coronation
festival, and in the illuminated saloon, the clanging music invited
to dance, and splendidly appeared the rich toilets and charms of the
ladies, and the festively costumed Princes and Knights. All seemed
pleasure, joy, and roguish gaiety, only one of the numerous guests had
a gloomy exterior; but exactly the black armor in which he walked about
excited general attention, and his tall figure, as well as the noble
propriety of his movements, attracted especially the regards of the
ladies. Who the Knight was? Nobody could guess, for his Vizier was
well closed, and nothing made him recognizable. Proud and yet modest he
advanced to the Empress; bowed on one knee before her seat, and begged
for the favor of a waltz with the