The town-hall clock was made
to tick German time, which varied by an even hour from French time.
Tacked upon the door of the little cafe where we ate our meals was a
card setting forth, with painful German particularity, the tariff which
might properly be charged for food and for lodging and drink and what
not; and it was done in German-Gothic script, all very angular and
precise; and it was signed by His Excellency, the German commandant; and
its prices were predicated on German logic and the estimated depth of a
German wallet. You might read a newspaper printed in German characters,
if so minded; but none printed in French, whether so minded or not.
So when we entered in at the door of the little French wine shop where
the three streets met, to find out who within had heart of grace to sing
'O Strassburg, O Strassburg', so lustily, lo and behold, it had been
magically transformed into a German beer shop. It was, as we presently
learned, the only beer shop in all of Maubeuge, and the reason for that
was this: No sooner had the Germans cleared and opened the roads back
across Belgium to their own frontiers than an enterprising tradesman of
the Rhein country, who somehow had escaped military service, loaded many
kegs of good German beer upon trucks and brought his precious cargoes
overland a hundred miles and more southward.
Pages:
380
381
382
383
384
385
386
387
388
389
390
391
392
393
394
395
396
397
398
399
400
401
402
403
404