its
humor may be preserved. He takes upon himself the renting of the place,
and pictures the tour of inspection with the agent's assistant.

He was greatly moved when they came to the street and said, softly and
lovingly:

"Ah, Korner Street, Korner Street, why did I not think of you
before! A place fit for the gods, dear sir. Quiet?--notice how
still it is; and remember this is noonday--noonday. It is but one
block long, you see, just a sweet, dear little nest hid away here in
the heart of the great metropolis, its presence and its sacred quiet
unsuspected by the restless crowds that swarm along the stately
thoroughfares yonder at its two extremities. And----"

"This building is handsome, but I don't think much of the others.
They look pretty commonplace, compared with the rest of Berlin."

"Dear! dear! have you noticed that? It is just an affectation of
the nobility. What they want----"

"The nobility? Do they live in----"

"In this street? That is good! very good, indeed! I wish the Duke
of Sassafras-Hagenstein could hear you say that. When the Duke
first moved in here he----"

"Does he live in this street?"

"Him! Well, I should say so! Do you see the big, plain house over
there with the placard in the third floor window? That's his
house."

"The placard that says 'Furnished rooms to let'? Does he keep
boarders?"

"What an idea! Him! With a rent-roll of twelve hundred thousand
marks a year? Oh, positively this is too good."

"Well, what does he have that sign up for?"

The assistant took me by the buttonhole & said, with a merry light
beaming in his eye:

"Why, my dear sir, a person would know you are new to Berlin just by
your innocent questions. Our aristocracy, our old, real, genuine
aristocracy, are full of the quaintest eccentricities,
eccentricities inherited for centuries, eccentricities which they
are prouder of than they are of their titles, and that sign-board
there is one of them. They all hang them out. And it's regulated
by an unwritten law. A baron is entitled to hang out two, a count
five, a duke fifteen----"

"Then they are all dukes over on that side, I sup----"

"Every one of them. Now the old Duke of Backofenhofenschwartz not
the present Duke, but the last but one, he----"

"Does he live over the sausage-shop in the cellar?"