Finally I Told Her In My Best German, Meantime Accompanying Myself
With Appropriate Yet Graceful Gestures, That She Need Not Concern
Herself Further With The Affair; She Could Just Let The Matter
Drop And I Would Interview The Manager And Put In A Claim For The
Value Of The Lost Garment.
She looked at me dazedly a moment
while I repeated the injunction more painstakingly than before;
and, at that, understanding seemed to break down the barriers of
her reason and she said, "Ja!
Ja!" Then she nodded emphatically
several times, smiled and hurried away and in twenty minutes was
back, bringing with her a begging friar of some monastic order or
other.
I would take it as a personal favor if some student of the various
Teutonic tongues and jargons would inform me whether there is any
word in Viennese for white vest that sounds like Catholic priest!
However, we prayed together - that brown brother and I. I do not
know what he prayed for, but I prayed for my vest.
I never got it though. I doubt whether my prayer ever reached
heaven - it had such a long way to go. It is farther from Vienna
to heaven than from any other place in the world, I guess - unless
it is Paris. That vest is still wandering about the damp-filled
corridors of that hotel, mooing in a plaintive manner for its mate
- which is myself. It will never find a suitable adopted parent.
It was especially coopered to my form by an expert clothing
contractor, and it will not fit anyone else.
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