"Dat's vat dey all says. It's to be all pay, but dey eats up de sour- crout and de fresh pork, and drinks de coffee, and ven I looks for de monish, de gentlemens has disappeared down de rivver. Now you don't looks as much rascal as some of dem does, and as it ish cold to-day, I vill make dish corntract mid you. You shall stay here till de cold goes away, and you shall hab de pest I've got for twenty-five cents a meal, but you shall pays me de twenty-five cents a meal down in advance, beforehand." "Here is a character," I thought, "a new type to study, and perhaps, after all, being frozen up in Pleasant Run may not be a fact to regret." My landlord's proposition was at once accepted, and I offered to pay him for three meals in advance, to which he replied, "Dat dree pays at one time was not in de corntract." "You have forgotten one point," I said, addressing him as he led me to the kitchen, where "mine frau" was up to her elbows in work. "And what ish dat?" he asked, rather suspiciously eying me. "You have not fixed a price for my lodgings." "De use of de peddothes costs me notting, so I never charges for de lodgings wen de boarder WASHES himself every day," answered mine host. Having settled this point, and ordered his wife, in commanding terms, "to gib dish man his breakfast," he withdrew. The woman treated me very kindly, apologizing for her husband's exacting demands by assuring me that "Nobody knows WHO'S when nowadays. Seems as if everybody had got 'moralized by de war." The coffee the good lady made me, though thoroughly boiled, was excellent, and I complimented her upon it. "Yes," she replied, "my coffee IS coffee. De 'Merican beeble forgets de coffee wen dey makes it, and puts all water. Oh, wishy- washy is 'Merican coffee. It's like peas and beans ground up. De German beebles won't drink de stuff."