Though ostensibly the same, German prices were vastly lower for visitors than for the native residents. For the first time I had something of the sensation of being a millionaire—cost was of slight importance. The marks I spent in Germany I bought at an average of two for fifteen cents; had I delayed longer in exchanging I might have had them still cheaper. In some lines, notably in that we are for the moment avoiding, prices, of course, had increased accordingly, sometimes outdistancing the advantages of the low rate of exchange. But the rank and file still clung to the old standards; it was a hopeless task to try to make the man in the street understand that the mark was no longer a mark. He went so far as to accuse the American government of profiteering, because the bacon it was indirectly furnishing him cost 7.50 marks a pound, which to him represented, not fifty-seven cents, but nearly two dollars. The net result of this drop in mark value was that the populace was several degrees nearer indigence. Those who could spend money freely were of three classes—foreigners, war profiteers, and those who derived their nourishment, directly or indirectly, at the public teat. Not, of course, that even those spent real money. There was not a penny of real money in circulation in all Germany. Gold, silver, and copper had all long since gone the way of other genuine articles in war-time Germany, and in their place had come _Ersatz_ money. Pewter coins did service in the smallest denominations; from a half-mark upward there were only “shin-plasters” of varying degrees of raggedness, the smaller bills a constant annoyance because, like most of the pewter coins, they were of value only in the vicinity of the municipality or chamber of commerce that issued them. Even the larger notes of the Reichsbank were precarious holdings that required the constant vigilance of the owner, lest he wake up some morning to find that they had been decreed into worthless paper.