Dishes clattered, there was a buzzing of voices, a scraping of feet and chairs, a banging of tankards, altogether noisy and cheerful.

The Fraeu-Wirtin preferred waitresses, and this preference was shared by her patrons.

They were quicker, cleaner; they remembered an order better; they were not always surreptitiously emptying the dregs of tankards on the way to the bar, as men invariably did.

Besides, the barmaid was an English institution, and the Fraeu-Wirtin greatly admired that race, though no one knew why.

The girls fully able to defend themselves, and were not at all diffident in boxing a smart fellow's ears.