The craze spread rapidly; all the officers began to play in their Casinos, and the principals in the theatre were always being roared at for keeping the stage waiting during rehearsals, when they missed their cues by being absorbed in the game of Canfield. It became the great resource of those who had small parts in the first act of an opera, and then had to wait in costume and make-up until the very end like the _Meister_ in "Meistersinger," or _Mary_ in "Fliegender Holländer" who has a seemingly interminable wait after her one scene at the beginning of the second act, until at the very last of the third she has to rush in for the single phrase "_Senta, Senta, wass willst du tun?_" In return for our tea, the little baritone would tell us amusing tales of his experiences in a cavalry regiment while doing his military service. His high spirits and his beautiful voice made him popular with officers and men, but he was quite unamenable to discipline, and had spent something like ninety days in prison during his first year, for such offences as refusing to stop singing on the march, or for cheeking an officer. He used to call us his goddesses, and speak to us as "Fräuleinchen." Our rooms, through him, were the starting place of new culinary ideas in Metz. We taught him to make and like such American delicacies as salted almonds, chocolate fudge, and hot chocolate sauce for ice cream, an unheard of combination. We tried to make him like fruit salad with mayonnaise; but the mixture of sweet with oil and vinegar was too much for his burgher palate, and he used to quote to us the Bavarian proverb, "_Was der Bauer net kennt frisst er net._" (What the peasant doesn't know he doesn't eat.) [Illustration: AMNERIS AS I USED TO DRESS IT] The country round Metz is rarely beautiful, in its half-French, half-German character. It retains its typical French poplars, planted in long lines, which turn pure gold in autumn. A placid river, the Moselle, runs between hills covered with orchards and vineyards, with picturesque villages of grey stone and red tiling, piled steeply up their sides. The meadows in the fall are filled with lavender crocuses--the kind that Meredith's Diana got up at four A.M. to gather. Every village has of course its "Gasthaus," some still absolutely French in the arrangement of their marble topped tables, mirrors, and red upholstered benches running round three sides of the room. We have drunk coffee in autumn, and _Maibowle_ in spring in every one of them, I think. I dare say many of them are still using the same card board circles under their customers' beer-glasses which we marked with our initials. Can you flip them from the edge of the table into your own hand?