He is not really bad, you know, only
thoughtless.
B. bought some cigars and offered me one. I did not want to smoke.
Smoking seemed to me, just then, a foolish waste of time and money.
As I said to B.:
"In a few more years, perhaps before this very month is gone, we
shall be lying in the silent tomb, with the worms feeding on us. Of
what advantage will it be to us then that we smoked these cigars to-
day?"
B. said:
"Well, the advantage it will be to me now is, that if you have a
cigar in your mouth I shan't get quite so much of your chatty
conversation. Take one, for my sake."
To humour him, I lit up.
I do not admire the German cigar. B. says that when you consider
they only cost a penny, you cannot grumble. But what I say is, that
when you consider they are dear at six a half-penny, you can
grumble. Well boiled, they might serve for greens; but as smoking
material they are not worth the match with which you light them,
especially not if the match be a German one. The German match is
quite a high art work. It has a yellow head and a magenta or green
stem, and can certainly lay claim to being the handsomest match in
Europe.
We smoked a good many penny cigars during our stay in Germany, and
that we were none the worse for doing so I consider as proof of our
splendid physique and constitution. I think the German cigar test
might, with reason, be adopted by life insurance offices. - Question:
"Are you at present, and have you always been, of robust health?"
Answer: "I have smoked a German cigar, and still live." Life
accepted.
Towards three o'clock we worked our way round to the station, and
began looking for our train. We hunted all over the place, but
could not find it anywhere. The central station at Munich is an
enormous building, and a perfect maze of passages and halls and
corridors. It is much easier to lose oneself in it, than to find
anything in it one may happen to want. Together and separately B.
and I lost ourselves and each other some twenty-four times. For
about half an hour we seemed to be doing nothing else but rushing up
and down the station looking for each other, suddenly finding each
other, and saying, "Why, where the dickens have you been? I have
been hunting for you everywhere. Don't go away like that," and then
immediately losing each other again.
And what was so extraordinary about the matter was that every time,
after losing each other, we invariably met again - when we did meet -
outside the door of the third-class refreshment room.
