As soon as Betty had got her jaw back into place, she glared
unbelievingly at him.
Mr. Oyster was taken aback himself. "See here, young man, I realize this
isn't an ordinary assignment, however, as I said, I am willing to risk a
considerable portion of my fortune--"
"Sorry," Simon said. "Can't be done."
"A hundred dollars a day plus expenses," Mr. Oyster said quietly. "I
like the fact that you already seem to have some interest and knowledge
of the matter. I liked the way you knew my name when I walked in the
door; my picture doesn't appear often in the papers."
"No go," Simon said, a sad quality in his voice.
"A fifty thousand dollar bonus if you bring me a time traveler."
"Out of the question," Simon said.
"But _why_?" Betty wailed.
"Just for laughs," Simon told the two of them sourly, "suppose I tell
you a funny story. It goes like this:"
* * * * * * * * *
I got a thousand dollars from Mr. Oyster (Simon began) in the way of an
advance, and leaving him with Betty who was making out a receipt, I
hustled back to the apartment and packed a bag. Hell, I'd wanted a
vacation anyway, this was a natural. On the way to Idlewild I stopped
off at the Germany Information Offices for some tourist literature.
It takes roughly three and a half hours to get to Gander from Idlewild.
I spent the time planning the fun I was going to have.
It takes roughly seven and a half hours from Gander to Shannon and I
spent that time dreaming up material I could put into my reports to Mr.
Oyster. I was going to have to give him some kind of report for his
money. Time travel yet! What a laugh!
Between Shannon and Munich a faint suspicion began to simmer in my mind.
These statistics I read on the _Oktoberfest_ in the Munich tourist
pamphlets. Five million people attended annually.
Where did five million people come from to attend an overgrown festival
in comparatively remote Southern Germany? The tourist season is over
before September 21st, first day of the gigantic beer bust. Nor could
the Germans account for any such number. Munich itself has a population
of less than a million, counting children.
And those millions of gallons of beer, the hundreds of thousands of
chickens, the herds of oxen. Who ponied up all the money for such
expenditures? How could the average German, with his twenty-five dollars
a week salary?
In Munich there was no hotel space available. I went to the Bahnhof
where they have a hotel service and applied. They put my name down,
pocketed the husky bribe, showed me where I could check my bag, told me
they'd do what they could, and to report back in a few hours.
I had another suspicious twinge. If five million people attended this
beer bout, how were they accommodated?
The _Theresienwiese_, the fair ground, was only a few blocks away. I was
stiff from the plane ride so I walked.
* * * * *
There are seven major brewers in the Munich area, each of them
represented by one of the circuslike tents that Mr. Oyster mentioned.
Each tent contained benches and tables for about five thousand persons
and from six to ten thousands pack themselves in, competing for room. In
the center is a tremendous bandstand, the musicians all _lederhosen_
clad, the music as Bavarian as any to be found in a Bavarian beer hall.
Hundreds of peasant garbed _fräuleins_ darted about the tables with
quart sized earthenware mugs, platters of chicken, sausage, kraut and
pretzels.
I found a place finally at a table which had space for twenty-odd beer
bibbers. Odd is right. As weird an assortment of Germans and foreign
tourists as could have been dreamed up, ranging from a seventy- or
eighty-year-old couple in Bavarian costume, to the bald-headed drunk
across the table from me.
A desperate waitress bearing six mugs of beer in each hand scurried
past. They call them _masses_, by the way, not mugs. The bald-headed
character and I both held up a finger and she slid two of the _masses_
over to us and then hustled on.
"Down the hatch," the other said, holding up his _mass_ in toast.
"To the ladies," I told him. Before sipping, I said, "You know, the
tourist pamphlets say this stuff is eighteen per cent. That's nonsense.
No beer is that strong." I took a long pull.
He looked at me, waiting.