ly buttoned
into the upper sheet, with the effect of a portly waistcoat.

The hotel was illumined by the kindly splendor of the uniformed portier,
who had met the travellers at the door, like a glowing vision of the
past, and a friendly air diffused itself through the whole house. At
the dinner, which, if not so cheap as they had somehow hoped, was by no
means bad, they took counsel with the English-speaking waiter as to what
entertainment Hamburg could offer for the evening, and by the time
they had drunk their coffee they had courage for the Circus Renz, which
seemed to be all there was.

The conductor of the trolley-car, which they hailed at the street
corner, stopped it and got off the platform, and stood in the street
until they were safely aboard, without telling them to step lively, or
pulling them up the steps; or knuckling them in the back to make them
move forward. He let them get fairly seated before he started the car,
and so lost the fun of seeing them lurch and stagger violently, and
wildly clutch each other for support. The Germans have so little sense
of humor that probably no one in the car would have been amused to see
the strangers flung upon the floor. No one apparently found it droll
that the conductor should touch his cap to them when he asked for their
fare; no one smiled at their efforts to make him understand where they
wished to go, and he did not wink at the other passengers in trying
to find out. Whenever the car stopped he descended first, and did not
remount till the dismounting passenger had taken time to get well away
from it. When the Marches got into the wrong car in coming home, and
were carried beyond their street, the conductor would not take their
fare.

The kindly civility which environed them went far to alleviate the
inclemency of the climate; it began to rain as soon as they left the
shelter of the car, but a citizen of whom they asked the nearest way to
the Circus Renz was so anxious to have them go aright that they did
not mind the wet, and the thought of his goodness embittered March's
self-reproach for under-tipping the sort of gorgeous heyduk, with a
staff like a drum-major's, who left his place at the circus door to get
their tickets. He brought them back with a magnificent bow, and was then
as visibly disappointed with the share of the change returned to him as
a child would have been.

They went to their places with the sting of his disappointment rankling
in their