If you
leave it with the cover standing open, that is taken as a sign that
you want more beer, and the girl snatches it away and brings it back
refilled.
B. and I very nearly had an accident one warm night, owing to our
ignorance of this custom. Each time after we had swallowed the
quart, we left the pot, standing before us with the cover up, and
each time it was, in consequence, taken away, and brought back to
us, brimming full again. After about the sixth time, we gently
remonstrated.
"This is very kind of you, my good girl," B. said, "but really I
don't think we CAN. I don't think we ought to. You must not go on
doing this sort of thing. We will drink this one now that you have
brought it, but we really must insist on its being the last."
After about the tenth time we expostulated still more strongly.
"Now, you know what I told you four quarts ago!" remarked B.,
severely. "This can't go on for ever. Something serious will be
happening. We are not used to your German school of drinking. We
are only foreigners. In our own country we are considered rather
swagger at this elbow-raising business, and for the credit of old
England we have done our best.
