“Hail to the Givers! a guest enters. Say where he shall sit. He cannot stay long Who must seek his living in the chase on snowshoes. * * * * * He who comes from afar needs fire, For his knees are stiff with the cold. He who has crossed the mountain cliffs, Needs food and clothing sore. Water and welcoming greeting he needs And the towel to dry him from the bath.” So even the old Germans had felt the blessings of hospitality, and received the angel’s reward. An old poet expressed it in a simple phrase:-- “A bit of bread, and the offer of the cup Won me a noble friend.” CHAPTER II ANCIENT TAVERN SIGNS [Illustration: Engel Winnenden, Württemberg] CHAPTER II ANCIENT TAVERN SIGNS “La bourse du voyageur, cette bourse précieuse, contient tout pour lui, puisque la sainte hospitalité n’est plus là pour le reçevoir au seuil des maisons avec son doux sourire et sa cordialité auguste.” VICTOR HUGO (_Le Rhin_). We must now take leave of “holy hospitality” which is written in the hearts of men and truly needs no outward sign, and must follow Iago’s counsel: “Put money in thy purse!” For our journey is no longer from friend to friend, but from host to host and from sign to sign. Regret it as we may, a hospitality for profit’s sake had to succeed the old free hospitality of friends. The widening commerce of the Roman world-empire could hardly have existed without a well-regulated business of entertainment along those magnificent roads by which the empire was bound together. The traveler was more and more unlikely, with every extension of the area of his far journeyings, to find houses to which he was bound by the friendly ties of genuine hospitality; while he who remained quietly by his own fireside (“qui sedet post fornacem”) would find the constantly increasing duties of the voluntary host growing to be so great a burden that he would be relieved to see the establishment of public inns. Indeed, he may himself, at first, have sought relief by charging his guests a nominal sum to defray their expense. At any rate, it would be very difficult to fix an exact line between these two forms of entertainment, which existed side by side for long ages of antiquity. Certain it is that at some moment, we know not just when, there appeared the Pompeian inscription over the tavern door: “Hospitium hic locatur.” (Hospitality for hire.) That was the birth-hour of the tavern sign.