"Am I really awake, or is it all a beautiful dream?" I said, pinching
myself to make sure.
At the other end of the room an unmistakably German band was playing
"Roses of Picardy," while all around me German waiters were running
about deferentially, with trays in their hands. Even as I wondered one
of them approached and laid the bill on my table with a friendly smile
and "Tree mark, bleesir."
Then I remembered that I was at the British Officers' Club in Cologne.
"How interested they will be at home," I thought, "when they know
where I am. And of course I must send them souvenirs of my Watch on
the Rhine;" and thoughtfully I produced from my pocket some local
tram-tickets, kept for the younger members of the family, and patted
a box of two-penny cigars encouragingly. These I was going to send to
my brother.
Then I rose and, paying the bill, went out to purchase a suitable
memento for a younger sister. Slowly I wandered along the crowded
Hohestrasse in the direction of the Opera House, peering into the
shop-windows for something redolent of the land I was in. Presently
a bright-looking sweetshop attracted me. The window contained a
beautiful selection of chocolate-boxes, with pictures of the Cathedral
or the Rhine Maidens on the lids. In I went and selected a handsome
sample, bound with red plush and bordered with sea-shells. But it was
empty. "Nix sweets," said the girl behind the counter, and offered me
the alternative of a bun. Nothing doing, and I passed on.
Further along the street I stopped before a chemist's shop to regard
a huge pyramid of bottles of eau-de-Cologne displayed in the window.
"The very thing," I said to myself. "What more appropriate souvenir
than a bottle of the local produce?"
That was ten days ago, and this morning I received the following
letter:--.
"Thank you _so_ much for the scent; it was sweet of you, and
arrived safely, only I don't think it _quite_ so nice as the _real_
eau-de-Cologne which I buy at Brown's shop [Brown is the village
grocer] for three-and-nine a bottle. And he says they must have taken
you in properly with a German imitation called eau-de-_Köln_, and
expects you had to pay a pretty penny for it, though I hope you
didn't, poor boy."
Reader, I ask you.
* * * * *
"INFLUENZA EPIDEMIC--PUBLIC MEETING.
"In order to comply with the regulations of the Board of
Health, each person attending the meeting must occupy 25
sq. feet space."--_Australian Paper_.
"Let me have men about me that are fat."--_Julius Cæsar_.
* * * * *
[Illustration: THE CHEERFUL PACHYDERM.