ing to speculate about, I really believe that
Bee and Mrs. Jimmie think we are a little low.

However, their impossible tastes being happily for us unattainable,
three hours after our arrival in Munich found Jimmie proudly marching
three sailor-hat and shirt-waist women into the Lowenbraukeller.

It was about four o'clock in the afternoon when we arrived, and we took
our seats at a little table in the terraced garden. A rosy-cheeked maid,
who evidently had violent objections to soap, brought us our beer, and
then we looked around. There was music, not very good, only a few people
smoking china pipes and not even drinking beer, a few idly reading the
paper, and a general air over everybody of Mr. Micawber waiting for
something to turn up.

Jimmie glanced around anxiously. The length of our stay depended upon
our ability to please Mrs. Jimmie and Bee, who were easily fatigued by
the populistic element of society.

"Nothin' doin'," growled Jimmie in my ear. "Wake 'em up, can't you?
Create a riot. Let's smash our beer-mugs, and shout 'Down with the
Kaiser!'"

"You'd find you would stay longer than you wanted to if you did that," I
said. "What do you suppose they are all _waiting_ for?"

Jimmie called the redolent maiden, and in German which made her quiver
put the question.

"At five o'clock they will open a fresh hogshead of beer--the
Lowenbrau," she answered him.

"_Fresh_ beer?" cried Jimmie. "How long has this been opened?"

"Since three."

"Great Scott!" whispered Jimmie. "Think of me brought up on a bottle,
coming to a land where men will sit for an hour to get beer the first
five minutes it is opened."

"See, they are opening it now," said the maid.

Sure enough, every man in the garden slowly rose and ambled leisurely to
a horse-trough in the centre of the garden in which lay perhaps a score
of mugs in running water. Each took a stein or two or three, depending
on his party, and formed in line in front of the counter across which
the beer was passed.

"Come, Jimmie," I said. "I'm going to get my own stein."

"Why do they do that?" asked Mrs. Jimmie, after we had got in line.

"It saves the half-cent charged for service," answered the maid.

"Now isn't she funny!" complained Bee of me as I returned beaming with
content. "She _likes_ to go and do a queer thing like that instead of
sitting still to be waited on, like a lady."

"Been waited on a million times like a lady," I ventured to respond. "It