I am sorry now that when I dined at this restaurant I did not order real turtle soup, _Roast beef Engl. mit Schmorkartoffeln_, celery, and a Welsh rarebit, because then I should have discovered whether these old British friends were recognisable in their Berlin environment. But it was more amusing at the time to ask for ham cooked in champagne and served with radish sauce, and other curious inviting combinations. "But at home," I said to the artist,--"at home we just eat to live. We have a great contempt for people who pay much attention to food." "I stayed in an English house last year, and never did I hear so much about food," said he. "One would eat nothing but grape-nuts and cheese, and another swore by toast and hot water and little _Pastetchen_ of beef, and the third would have large rice puddings, and the fourth asked for fruit at every meal, and the fifth said all the others were wrong and that he wanted a good dinner. The poor hostess would have been distracted if she had not been one of those who love a new fad and try each one in turn. Also there were two eminent physicians in the house, and one of these drank champagne every night, while the other would touch nothing but Perrier and said champagne was poison. Directly we sat down we discussed these things, ... and everyone assured me that if I tried his regime I should improve in health most marvellously." "Which did you try?" I asked. "The good dinner and the champagne, of course. But I did not find they affected my health one way or the other." CHAPTER XXII LIFE IN LODGINGS As rents are high in Germany, it is usual for people of small means to let off one or two rooms, either furnished or unfurnished. But it is not usual to supply a lodger with any meal except his coffee and rolls in the morning. If you wish to take lodgings in a German town, and work through the long list of them in a local paper, you will probably find no one willing to provide for you in the English fashion. "Cooking!" they say with horror,--"cooking! You want to eat in your room. No. That can we not undertake. Coffee in the morning, yes; and rolls with it and butter and even two eggs, but nothing further. Just round the corner in the _Königstrasse_ are two very fine restaurants, where the _Herrschaften_ can eat what they will at any hour of the day, and for moderate prices."