So I looked at the newspaper. Then I asked the landlady for a cigarette,
not knowing how else to begin. So she came to my table, and we talked.
It pleased me to take upon myself a sort of romantic, wandering
character; she said my German was '_schoen_'; a little goes a long way.
So I asked her who were the men who had sat at the long table. She
became rather stiff and curt.
'They are the men looking for work,' she said, as if the subject were
disagreeable.
'But why do they come here, so many?' I asked.
Then she told me that they were going out of the country: this was
almost the last village of the border: that the relieving officer in
each village was empowered to give to every vagrant a ticket entitling
the holder to an evening meal, bed, and bread in the morning, at a
certain inn. This was the inn for the vagrants coming to this village.
The landlady received fourpence per head, I believe it was, for each of
these wanderers.
'Little enough,' I said.
'Nothing,' she replied.
She did not like the subject at all. Only her respect for me made her
answer.
'_Bettler, Lumpen, und Taugenichtse!_' I said cheerfully.
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