A Tramp Abroad. Mark Twain

      Very well, I took an American young lady to one of the fine balls in Baden-Baden, one night, and at the entrance-door upstairs we were halted by an official – something about Miss Jones’s dress was not according to rule; I don’t remember what it was, now; something was wanting – her back hair, or a shawl, or a fan, or a shovel, or something. The official was ever so polite, and ever so sorry, but the rule was strict, and he could not let us in. It was very embarrassing, for many eyes were on us. But now a richly dressed girl stepped out of the ballroom, inquired into the trouble, and said she could fix it in a moment. She took Miss Jones to the robing-room, and soon brought her back in regulation trim, and then we entered the ballroom with this benefactress unchallenged.

      Being safe, now, I began to puzzle through my sincere but ungrammatical thanks, when there was a sudden mutual recognition – the benefactress and I had met at Allerheiligen. Two weeks had not altered her good face, and plainly her heart was in the right place yet, but there was such a difference between these clothes and the clothes I had seen her in before, when she was walking thirty miles a day in the Black Forest, that it was quite natural that I had failed to recognize her sooner. I had on my other suit, too, but my German would betray me to a person who had heard it once, anyway. She brought her brother and sister, and they made our way smooth for that evening.

      Well – months afterward, I was driving through the streets of Munich in a cab with a German lady, one day, when she said:

      “There, that is Prince Ludwig and his wife, walking along there.”

      Everybody was bowing to them – cabmen, little children, and everybody else – and they were returning all the bows and overlooking nobody, when a young lady met them and made a deep courtesy.

      “That is probably one of the ladies of the court,” said my German friend.

      I said:

      “She is an honor to it, then. I know her. I don’t know her name, but I know her. I have known her at Allerheiligen and Baden-Baden. She ought to be an Empress, but she may be only a Duchess; it is the way things go in this way.”

      If one asks a German a civil question, he will be quite sure to get a civil answer. If you stop a German in the street and ask him to direct you to a certain place, he shows no sign of feeling offended. If the place be difficult to find, ten to one the man will drop his own matters and go with you and show you.