xtent,
bureaucratic organs. They are lords, not servants, of the public.
They do not appear to want your business, your money.

Gard's imperfect German balked him, too. After he had been back and
forth to the little window three or four times, trying to alter his
"ad" to suit the rasping individual whose face Gard could scarcely
catch a glimpse of by stooping down to the aperture, an American
stepped forward. He was a steel gray man of about sixty and was
inserting a notice. He said he was familiar with all the rigors of
such a proceeding, being a correspondent for the Chicago _Gazette_.

"Perhaps I can help," volunteered Miles Anderson. "After having had
scraps and fights about this sort of thing around this country for
seven years--though the Germans won't fight--I've finally got the
hang of it. You can save three or four words by a different jargon.
I can see you are an American because you take up more room about
this than necessary. German economy, you must remember."

Gard was glad to find a friend of his race. And after the
advertisement was disposed of, they repaired to a neighboring beer
hall to refresh and relieve their feelings. Anderson was
smooth-shaven, with piercing gray eyes under bushy eyebrows, his
head presenting the appearance of just having been in a barber's
chair. With the insistent curiosity of a practiced interviewer he
wanted to know why Kirtley had come to this godless land; where he
was hanging out; and all about the Buchers.

A bachelor, Anderson had become toughened by hotel and _pension_. He
thought Kirtley very fortunate in getting right into a family where
the veritable German bloom had not been rubbed off by foreigners, by
boarders. It would be a most fragrant experience. Here Kirtley would
see on the native heath the genuine German of the great middle class
that makes up the might of the nation.

"Can you read German comfortably?" asked Anderson. "What do you make
of it? I've been studying it for seven years and sometimes it seems
as if I hadn't got much further than the verb to hate."

"You can't give me any short cuts about it, then?" laughed Gard.

"Yes, I can--yes, I can. Here's a little compilation and analysis of
the irregular verbs," explained his new acquaintance, pulling a
green brochure from his pocket. "Only costs a mark. You can get a
second-hand one at the book stalls by the Augustus bridge. I always
carry it with me and con it over and over. Good for the
pronunci