The rules of the level were prominently posted. As all consequential money exchanges were made through bank checks, the keeping of the records was an easy matter. These rules I found forbade any woman to cash checks in excess of one thousand marks a month, or in excess of two hundred marks from any one man. That was simple enough, and I smiled as I recalled that I had gone the legal limit in my first adventure. Following the example of other men, I stepped to the window and gave the name: "Bertha 34 R 6." A clerk brought me a book opened to the page of her record. At the top of the page was entered this statement, "Bred for an actress but rejected for both professional work and maternity because found devoid of sympathetic emotions." I laughed as I read this, but when on the next line I saw from the date of her entrance to the level that Bertha's thirty days was in reality nearly three years, my mirth turned to anger. I looked down the list of entries and found that for some time she had been cashing each month the maximum figure of a thousand marks. Evidently her little scheme of pensive posing in the Hall of Flowers was working nicely. In the current month, hardly half gone, she already had to her credit seven hundred marks; and last on the list was my own contribution, freshly entered. "She has three hundred marks yet," commented the clerk. "Yes, I see,"--and I turned to go. But I paused and stepped again to the window. "There is another girl I would like to look up," I said, "but I have only her name and no number." "Do you know the date of her arrival?" asked the clerk. "Yes, she has been here four years and six days. The name is Marguerite." The clerk walked over to a card file and after some searching brought back a slip with half a dozen numbers. "Try these," he said, and he brought me the volumes. The second record I inspected read: "Marguerite, 78 K 4, Love-child." On the page below was a single entry for each month of two hundred marks and every entry from the first was in the name of Ludwig Zimmern. ~9~ I kept my appointment with Bertha, but found it difficult to hide my anger as she greeted me. Wishing to get the interview over, I asked abruptly, "Have you read the book I left?" "Not all of it," she replied, "I found it rather dull." "Then perhaps I had better take it with me." "But I think I shall keep it awhile," she demurred. "No," I insisted, as I looked about and failed to see the geography, "I wish you would get it for me. I want to take it back, in fact it was a borrowed book." "Most likely," she smiled archly, "but since you are not a staff officer, and had no right to have that book, you might as well know that you will get it when I please to give it to you." Seeing that she was thoroughly aware of my predicament, I grew frightened and my anger slipped from its moorings. "See here," I cried, "your little story of innocence and virtue is very clever, but I've looked you up and--"