If you insist, the most they will promise, and that not willingly, is to provide you with a knife and fork and a tablecloth for a pyramid of courses sent hot from one of the very fine adjacent restaurants for 1 mark or 1 mark 20 pf. Supper in Germany is the easiest meal in the day to provide, as you buy the substantial part of it at a _Delikatessenhandlung_, and find that even a German landlady will condescend to get you rolls and butter and beer. This sounds like the Simple Life, to be sure; but if you are in German lodgings for any length of time you probably desire for one reason or the other to lead it. The plan of having your dinner sent piping hot from a restaurant in nice clean white dishes rather like monster soufflé dishes is not a bad one if the restaurant keeps faith with you. It is rather amusing to begin at the top with soup and work through the various surprises and temptations of the pyramid till you get to _Biskuit-Pudding mit Vanille Sauce_ at the bottom. But in nine cases out of ten the restaurant fails you, sends uneatable food, is absurdly unpunctual or says plainly it can't be bothered. Then you have to wander about and out of doors for your food in all weathers and all states of health. This is amusing for a time, but not in the long run. It is astonishing how tired you can get of the "very fine" restaurants within reach, of their waitresses, their furniture, their menus, and their daily guests. At least, this is so in a small town where the best restaurant is not "very fine," although both food and service will be better than in an English town of the same size. If you are in Berlin and can go to the good restaurants, there you will be in danger of becoming a gourmet and losing your natural affection for cold mutton.