IN THE STATE OF DENMARK 105 



Two bands, a military and a municipal, played in 

 an open space in the wood, sheltered by the swaying 

 beech-trees, and from the town came some carriage- 

 loads of people to listen, and to have tea and sugary 

 cakes in the verandah of the restaurant, and at small 

 tables promiscuously grouped among the trees. It 

 was the last band-playing of the year, and the audience 

 showed a marked attentiveness to Wagner and 

 Strauss, Rossini and Mozart, played with a sentiment, 

 a comprehension, that may or may not have been 

 enhanced by a sense of farewell. 



IV 



" Omelettes aux fines herbes,"" said my cousin, 

 pausing between each word so that it might fall with 

 dewdrop limpidity upon the intelligence of the waiter. 

 Perhaps his intelligence had already done its utmost 

 during a conversation which had walked like a pesti- 

 lence through the German language in the endeavour 

 to describe a penny roll ; at all events, when break- 

 fast, on its manifold little dishes, was placed on the 

 table, it was accompanied by an omelette whose 

 sides oozed hot strawberry jam at every crevice, and 

 the penny rolls themselves were represented by two 

 lardy cakes with sugar on the top. Having drawn a 

 striking portrait of a penny roll on the margin of a 

 newspaper my cousin showed it to the waiter, observing 

 " Brodchen-Brocass,'' in the pleasing confidence that 

 she was adding the Danish equivalent for breakfast 

 to the German diminutive of bread. Perhaps if she 

 had remembered that Frokost implied the morning 

 meal of Denmark things might have been different; 

 as it was, the waiter took away the sugared cakes 

 and returned no more. 



