as here, beginning in a modest way with a couple of tables whereat
chance-hungry people might sit while they ate zwieback or a thick slice
of hearty pumpernickel and drank a glass of milk, that a restaurant was
established as a tender to the bakery. It did not set out to be a large
restaurant, and, in fact, never became one. In the back part of the
shop were a dozen tables, covered with oil-cloth and decorated with
red napkins, and at these tables, under the especial direction of Aunt
Hedwig, who was a culinary genius, was served a limited, but from a
German stand-point most toothsome, bill of fare. There was Hasenpfeffer
mit Spaetzle, and Sauerbraten mit Kartoffelkloesse, and Rindfleisch mit
Meerrettig, and Bratwurst mit Rothkraut; and Aunt Hedwig made delicious
coffee, and the bakery of course provided all manner of sweet cakes. In
the summer-time they did a famous business in ice-cream.

On the plate-glass windows beneath the sweeping curve of white letters
in which the name of the owner of the bakery was set forth was added in
smaller letters the words "Cafe Nuernberger." Gottlieb and Aunt Hedwig
and the man who made the sign (this last, however, for the venal reason
that more letters would be required) had stood out stoutly for the
honest German "Kaffehaus;" but Minna, whose tastes were refined, had
insisted upon the use of the French word: there was more style about it,
she said. And this was a case in which style was wedded to substantial
excellence. What with the good things which Gottlieb baked and the good
things which Aunt Hedwig cooked, the Cafe Nuernberger presently
acquired a somewhat enviable reputation. It became even a resort of the
aristocracy, in this case represented by the dwellers in the handsome
houses on the eastern and northern sides of Tompkins Square. Of winter
evenings, when bright gas-light and a big glowing stove made the
restaurant a very cozy place indeed, large parties of these aristocrats
would drop in on their way home from the Thalia Theatre, and would stuff
themselves with Hasenpfeffer and Sauerbraten and Kartoffelkloesse, and
would swig Aunt Hedwig's strong coffee (out of cups big enough and thick
enough to have served as shells and been fired from a mortar), until it
would seem as though they must certainly crack their aristocratic skins.

Altogether, Gottlieb was in a flourishing line of business; and but
for the deep sorrow that time never wholly could heal, and but for the
conti