"He was a pompous, stiff-jointed man," said my friends, "an official in a small town, who would go to the stake rather than break the letter of the law. But when he came to Berlin to attend a niece's marriage he thought he would have some fun. He arrived late on _Polterabend_, and he brought with him an enormous earthenware crock. Instead of ringing he hurled the crock against the outside door of the flat, so that it smashed to atoms with a noise like thunder. The inhabitants of that flat came forth like a swarm of bees, but they were not laughing at the fun, because it was not their _Polterabend_." He had broken crockery on the wrong floor. In cities this ancient German custom of breaking crockery at the bride's door on _Polterabend_ (the night before the wedding) has died out, but it has not long been dead. I have talked with people who remembered it in full force when they were young. I believe that the idea was to appease the _Poltergeist_, who would otherwise vex and disturb the young couple. My dictionary, the one that has 2412 pages, says that a _Poltergeist_ is a "racketing spectre," probably what we who are not dictionary makers would call a hobgoblin. In Brands' _Antiquities_ I find reference to this old custom at the marriage of a Duke of York in Germany, when great quantities of glass and china were smashed at the palace doors the night before the wedding. Polterabend is still celebrated by Germans, although they no longer consider it polite to smash crockery. There is always a large entertainment, sometimes at the bride's house, sometimes at the house of a near relative; there are theatricals with personal allusions, or recitations of home-made topical poetry, some good music, and the inevitable evergreens woven into sentiments of encouragement and congratulation. The bride's presents are set out much as they are in England, and perhaps class for class more valuable presents are given in Germany than in England. Electro-plate, for instance, was considered impossible a few years ago. A wedding present, if it was silver at all, must be real silver. But it is not so much the custom as with us to give presents of money.