bread often got cake, for there was always more or less “underground” traffic in forbidden delicacies. One of the most difficult tasks of all was to lay in a lunch for a journey. Before my first trip out of the capital I tramped the streets for more than an hour in quest of something edible to carry along with me, and finally paid six marks for an egg-and-sausage sandwich that went easily into a vest pocket. Good linen had almost wholly disappeared—at least from sight. It was never seen on dining-tables, having long since been commandeered by the government for the making of bandages—or successfully hidden. Paper napkins and tablecloths were the invariable rule even in the most expensive establishments. Personal linen was said to be in a sad state among rich and poor alike; the _Ersatz_ soap or soap-powders reduced it quickly to the consistency and durability of tissue-paper. Many of the proudest families had laid away their best small-clothes, hoping for the return of less destructive wash-days. As to soap for toilet purposes, among German residents it was little more than a memory; such as still existed had absolutely no fat in it, and was made almost wholly of sand. Foreigners lucky or foresighted enough to have brought a supply with them might win the good will of those with whom they came in contact far more easily than by the distribution of mere money. But we are getting off the all-absorbing topic of food. If the reader feels he can endure it, I wish to take him to a half-dozen meals in Berlin, where he may see and taste for himself. The first one is in a public soup-kitchen, where it will be wiser just to look on, or at most to pretend to eat. Long lines of pitiful beings, women and children predominating, file by the faintly steaming kettles, each carrying a small receptacle into which the attendants toss a ladleful of colored water, sometimes with a piece of turnip or some still more plebeian root in it. The needy were lucky to get one such “hot meal” a day; the rest of the time they consumed the dregs of the markets or things which were fed only to hogs before the war. The school lunch and often the supper of perhaps the majority of the children of Berlin consisted of a thin but heavy slice of war-bread lightly smeared with a colic-provoking imitation of jam. In contrast, one might stroll into the Adlon in the late afternoon and see plump and prosperous war profiteers—“Jews” the Berliners called them, though they were by no means confined to a single race—taking their plentiful “tea” in the midst of, and often in company with, Allied officers.