ting up the Friedrichstrasse in an open taxicab, singing "Give My
Regards to Broadway" in all the prime ecstasy of a beer souse. You will
find them in the rancid Tingel-Tangel, blaspheming the _kellner_ because
they can't get a highball. You will find them in the Nollendorfplatz
gaping at the fairies. You will see them, green-skinned in the tyrannic
light of early morning, battering at the iron grating of their hotel for
the porter to open up and let them in.

For them, are no souvenirs of happy evening hours that sing always in
the heart of a Berlin they can never know. For them, shall be no memory
of that vast and insuperable _gemuetlichkeit_, that superb and pacific
democracy, that dwells and shall dwell forever by night in the spirit of
the German people. They will never know the Berlin that lifts its seidel
to the setting sun, the Berlin that greets the moonrise, the Berlin that
meets the dawn. The Berlin that they know is a Berlin of French
champagnes, Italian confetti, Spanish dancers, English-trained waiters,
Austrian courtesans and American hilarities. They interpret a city by
its leading all-night restaurant; a nation by the _demi-mondaine_ who
happens to be nearest their table. For them, there is no--

But hark, what is that?

What is that strange sound that comes to me?

* * *

"Extra! _Evening Telegram_, extra! All 'bout the Giants win
double-header!"

* * *

A newsboy in neuralgic yowl, bawling in the street below.

Alas, it is true: after all, I am really back again in New York. My
rooms are littered with battered bags and down-at-the-heel walking
sticks and still-damp steamer rugs, lying where they dropped from the
hands of maudlin bellboys. My trunks are creaking their way down the
hall, urged on by a perspiring, muttering porter. The windows, still
locked and gone blue-grey with the August heat, rattle to the echo of
the rankling "L" trains. The last crack of a triphammer, peckering at a
giant pile of iron down the block, dies out on the dead air. A taxicab,
rrrrr-ing in the street below, grunts its horn. Another "L" train and
the panes rattle again. A momentary quiet ... and from somewhere in a
nearby street I hear again the grind-organ.

It is playing "Alexander's Ragtime Band."

LONDON

[Illustration: LONDON]

LONDON

Macauley's New Zealander, so I hear, will view the ruins of St. Paul's
from London Bridge; but as for me, I prefer