Two tiny show-windows faced the street—such queer, old-fashioned windows in these days of plate glass. At the back they were quite open to the shop, and in one of them reposed a huge, white, immovable structure—a majestic, heavy, nutty, surely indigestible birthday cake. Around its edge were flutings and scrolls of white icing, and on its broad breast reposed cherries, and stout butterflies of jelly, and cunning traceries of colored sugar. It was quite the dressiest cake I had ever beheld. Surely no human hand could be wanton enough to guide a knife through all that magnificence. But in the center of all this splendor was an inscription in heavy white letters of icing: “Charlottens Geburtstag.” Reluctantly I tore my gaze from this imposing example of the German confectioner’s art, for Blackie was tugging impatiently at my sleeve. “But Blackie,” I marveled, “do you honestly suppose that that structure is intended for some Charlotte’s birthday?” “In Milwaukee,” explained Blackie, “w’en you got a birthday you got t’ have a geburtstag cake, with your name on it, and all the cousins and aunts and members of the North Side Frauen Turner Verein Gesellchaft, in for the day. It ain’t considered decent if you don’t. Are you ready to fight your way into the main tent?” It was holiday time, and the single narrow aisle of the front shop was crowded. It was not easy to elbow one’s way through the packed little space. Men and women were ordering recklessly of the cakes of every description that were heaped in cases and on shelves. Cakes! What a pale; dry name to apply to those crumbling, 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.