ng, melting,
indigestible German confections! Blackie grinned with enjoyment while I
gazed. There were cakes the like of which I had never seen and of which
I did not even know the names. There were little round cup cakes made of
almond paste that melts in the mouth; there were Schnecken glazed with
a delicious candied brown sugar; there were Bismarcks composed of layer
upon layer of flaky crust inlaid with an oozy custard that evades the
eager consumer at the first bite, and that slides down one's collar
when chased with a pursuing tongue. There were Pfeffernusse; there,
were Lebkuchen; there were cheese-kuchen; plum-kuchen, peach-kuchen,
Apfelkuchen, the juicy fruit stuck thickly into the crust, the whole
dusted over with powdered sugar. There were Torten, and Hornchen, and
butter cookies.

Blackie touched my arm, and I tore my gaze from a cherry-studded
Schaumtorte that was being reverently packed for delivery.

"My, what a greedy girl! Now get your mind all made up. This is your
chance. You know you're supposed t' take a slant at th' things an' make
up your mind w'at you want before you go back w'ere th' tables are.
Don't fumble this thing. When Olga or Minna comes waddlin' up t' you
an' says: 'Nu, Fraulein?' you gotta tell her whether your heart says
plum-kuchen oder Nusstorte, or both, see? Just like that. Now make up
your mind. I'd hate t' have you blunder. Have you decided?"

"Decided! How can I?" I moaned, watching a black-haired, black-eyed
Alsatian girl behind the counter as she rolled a piece of white paper
into a cone and dipped a spoonful of whipped cream from a great brown
bowl heaped high with the snowy stuff. She filled the paper cone,
inserted the point of it into one end of a hollow pastry horn, and
gently squeezed. Presto! A cream-filled Hornchen!

"Oh, Blackie!" I gasped. "Come on. I want to go in and eat."

As we elbowed our way to the rear room separated from the front shop
only by a flimsy wooden partition, I expected I know not what.

But surely this was not Blackie's much-vaunted Baumbach's! This long,
narrow, dingy room, with its bare floor and its iron-legged tables whose
bare marble tops were yellow with age and use! I said nothing as we
seated ourselves. Blackie was watching me out of the tail of his eye.
My glance wandered about the shabby, smoke-filled room, and slowly and
surely the charm of that fusty, dingy little cafe came upon me.

A huge stove glowed red in one corner. On the