When they were ready to go, March experienced from the apathy of the baggage clerk and the reluctance of the porters a more piercing distress than any he had known at the railroad stations; and one luckless valise which he ordered sent after him by express reached his bankers in Paris a fortnight overdue, with an accumulation of charges upon it outvaluing the books which it contained.
But these were minor defects in an establishment which had many merits, and was mainly of the temperament and intention of the large English railroad hotels.

They looked from their windows down into a gardened square, peopled with a full share of the superabounding statues of Berlin and frequented by babies and nurse maids who seemed not to mind the cold any more than the stone kings and generals.

The aspect of this square, like the excellent cooking of the hotel and the architecture of the imperial capital, suggested the superior civilization of Paris.

Even the rows of gray houses and private palaces of Berlin are in the French taste, which is the only taste there is in Berlin.

The suggestion of Paris is constant, but it is of Paris in exile, and without the chic which the city wears in its native air.