reputation bogus, a snare for tourists, a delusion for the unsophisticated? Where is that far-renowned gemüthlichkeit? Has an American press agent had his foul hand in the advertising of Austria's capital? Perhaps—perhaps!... But what of those Viennese operas? What of those sensuous waltzes, those lubric bits of _schramm-musik_ which have come from Vienna? And has he not seen pictures of Viennese women—angels à la mode, miracles of beauty, Loreleis de luxe? Even Baedeker, the papa of the travelling schoolmarms, has admitted Vienna to be a bit frivolous.
A puzzle, to be sure. A problem for Copernicus—a paradox, a theorem with many decimal points. So thinks the tourist, retiring to his hotel. And figuring thus, he falls to sleep, enveloped in a caressing miasma of almost unearthly respectability.
But is it true that Vienna is the home of purity, of early retirers, of phlegmatic and virtuous souls? Are its gaieties mere
