162 STRAY-AWAYS 



there is, even in conservative Denmark, a new era 

 coming to them, and there are women who have let 

 the world know they can work as well as weep. 



The problem of meals had begun to weigh on us a 

 good deal. There is something especially sufficing 

 about the wonderful Danish coffee and the rolls and 

 butter of the little breakfast; frokost at twelve or 

 one o'clock became abhorrent, yet at three, when 

 we had arrived at an appetite, it was too late for 

 luncheon and too early for dinner. The usual end 

 of the matter was that at a quarter to four we stalked 

 gauntly into Thomsen's Restaurant in the Ostergade, 

 and waited in the bitterness of starvation for the 

 four o'clock dinner. It happened almost every day, 

 and always the unfailing Thomsen soothed us with 

 three courses, perfectly cooked, for the sum of one- 

 and-twopence. The delicacy and finish of Danish 

 cooking is only equalled by its cheapness; but the 

 Danes sigh, and say that cheap food is the sign of a 

 poor country. Ireland also is a poor country, and we 

 have yet to find there the restaurant that will supply 

 sorrel soup, fish quenelles, roast lamb, vegetables and 

 coffee for one-and-threepence, with a big, cool room, 

 speckless table-cloths, and waiters straight out of 

 band-boxes. England being a rich country, it is 

 unreasonable to hope for anything of the kind there. 



It was on the evening of Thorwaldsen that we 

 unbent ourselves by going to see Gjen Boeurne at 

 the Royal Theatre, a ponderous, domed building in 

 the Kongens Ny Torv. Strange rules prevail about the 

 booking of places; on the day before the prices 

 are doubled, on the morning of the performance they 

 are fifty per cent, in excess ; consequently we did not 

 book, and went early to avoid the rush. We then 

 discovered that the rush consisted exclusively of 

 ourselves. In the solemn silence of the vestibule our 



