IN THE STATE OF DENMARK 97 



supplication in the knees of the Skandinavien 'bus 

 liorse. 



It is a strange thing to arrive in a town at six 

 o'clock on a sunny afternoon and find that every 

 human being has dined, and is beginning to think, 

 without aversion, of supper. But anything we wished 

 we could have, so Mr, Georg Jorgensen, the landlord, 

 said, in such English as may be acquired from the 

 efforts of English tourists to speak in German. He 

 was tall, fair, and gravely polite, but seemed pre- 

 occupied, and w^as almost invariably to be found 

 with his ear to the telephone in the coffee-room, which 

 indeed was a species of telephone exchange. 



As we sat there, men wandered casually in — men 

 wiio might one and all have been English, but for a 

 certain glassy exuberance of turned-down collar, a 

 certain tapey wildness of tie, and addressed them- 

 selves to the mouthpiece of the telephone with the 

 word " hah-lo,''^ pronounced very softly and without 

 a shade of expression. Among them the landlord 

 went and came and said hahlo, but always with 

 preoccupation. 



At seven o'clock, wiiile we yet sat over the coffee, 

 the slices of black bread, and the slices of cold tongue 

 that had followed on stewed wild-hen, Herr Jorgen- 

 sen flung apart the curtains of a doorway and disclosed 

 the preparations for a banquet, sparkling down a long 

 room under the electric light. At every second place 

 lay a bouquet, in orderly alternation with green 

 glasses full of toothpicks ; and, while we stared, a 

 highly-scented gentleman in a dress-coat, faultless 

 shirt-front, and grey trousers, passed us by, and 

 placed at the head of the table a bouquet double the 

 size of the others. A touch of humorous protective- 

 ness in the waiter's address sufficiently indicated the 

 bridegroom, and then the curtains were closed again. 



