Germany in War Time: What an American Girl Saw and HeardMcAuley, Mary Ethel
History
Germany in War Time: What an American Girl Saw and Heard
McAuley, Mary Ethel
World War, 1914-1918 -- Germany
I did not want to lay out 400 or 500 marks for a typewriter, and I
had an awful time. It was absolutely impossible to rent a typewriter
anywhere in Berlin, and I went everywhere. I put an advertisement in
the paper and I got only six answers and upon going to all of these
six places, I found that at each place the typewriter was a "Mignon,"
a little toy machine where you had to turn a wheel whenever you struck
a letter.
After spending four days hunting, I finally bought a "Pittsburg
Visible." I paid sixty-five marks for it, and it wasn't like any
typewriter I have seen before--or since. It was very curious to look
at--a long, thin affair with very weak prongs that were always getting
twisted around each other. It must have been twenty-five or thirty
years old. I was always in terror for fear something would happen to
it, and whenever we had a guest I yelled, "Be careful and don't bump
the typewriter," or "Don't lay your hat on the typewriter." When I
first used it, it had the bad habit of getting stuck in the middle of a
line, but after I had had it a year, it worked pretty well and I became
very much attached to my little "Pittsburg Visible."
During the year I had my typewriter, typewriters became scarcer
and dearer than ever, indeed it was impossible to buy any kind of a
second-hand visible typewriter, and the new ones were about 600 marks.
New correspondents coming over had an awful time and most of them had
to borrow typewriters from friends. As most of the typewriters were of
American make, it was hard to get a typewriter repaired, as the parts
came from America. Ribbons and carbon paper were very expensive, and
although typewriter paper doubled its price, it was cheaper than the
paper here in America.
At the time I sold my little Pittsburg Visible in June 1917, I was
living in a German boarding-house in Berlin. I believe in advertising,
so I put an "ad" in the "Lokal-Anzeiger" which read: "For sale--cheap,
visible typewriter, Pension Kostermann, Savigny-Platz 5." I thought
that it was a very nice "ad" and it cost me one mark ninety pfennigs.
I will never forget the day my "ad" came out. Before I was up at
seven A. M. the maid knocked at my door and said that I was wanted
at the telephone. It was some one about the typewriter. That was the
beginning. The phone rang all day long, and all the next day. People
came in droves, and they would not go away even after the typewriter
was sold. They wanted to know what kind it was, and they left cursing
themselves that they had not come earlier.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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