A man in an American sack suit, with a bowler hat on his head, lounges against this rail. His elbows rest upon it, his legs are crossed in the fashion of a figure four, and his face is buried in the red book of Herr Baedeker. It is the volume on Southern Germany, and he is reading the list of Munich hotels. Now and then he stops to mark one with a pencil, which he wets at his lips each time. While he is thus engaged, another man comes ambling along the terrace, apparently from the direction of the funicular railway station. He, too, carries a red book. It is Baedeker on Austria-Hungary. After gaping around him a bit, this second man approaches the rail near the other and leans his elbows upon it. Presently he takes a package of chewing gum from his coat pocket, selects two pieces, puts them into his mouth and begins to chew. Then he spits idly into space, idly but homerically, a truly stupendous expectoration, a staggering discharge from the Alps to the first shelf of the Lombard plain! The first man, startled by the report, glances up. Their eyes meet and there is a vague glimmer of recognition.
"Aha, the German line! I guess you found the grub all right."
"Oh, in the main. I have eaten better, but then again, I have eaten worse."
"Well, they charge you enough for it, whether you get it or not. A man could live at the Plaza cheaper."
"I should _say_ he could. What boat did _you_ come over in?"
"I hear the meals on those English ships are nothing to what they used to be."
"That's what everybody tells me. But, as for me, I can't say I found them so bad. I had to send back the potatoes twice and the breakfast bacon once, but they had very good lima beans."
"Isn't that English bacon awful stuff to get down?"
"It certainly is: all meat and gristle. I wonder what an Englishman would say if you put him next to a plate of genuine, crisp, _American_ bacon?"
"I guess he would yell for the police--or choke to death."
"Did you like the German cooking on the _Kronprinz_?"
"Well, I did and I didn't. The chicken _à la_ Maryland was very good, but they had it only once. I could eat it every day."
"Oh, bill be damned! You might have ordered it anyhow. Make a fuss and you'll get what you want. These foreigners have to be bossed around. They're used to it."