THE BOOK OF THE HOMELESS
ated on the bastion of the Rhine, looking right over to Drachenfels. The service was rapid and noiseless, the cooking as good as a Teuton kitchen can produce. It had the air of highly-organised prosperity, of a machine exactly suited to harmonise with wealth. To call it "the best hotel in the world" is to show a false conception of excellence as applied to hotels, but it presented everything that German luxury could demand.
We were given a row of excellent rooms on the first floor, with long windows opening on to a terrace which roofed the great restaurant, and whence there was a noble prospect. We went to bed early, and soon the whole vast establishment seemed wrapped in velvet silence. Not a sound broke in the dark warm summer night, not even a whisper from the river. Suddenly an amazing, an unintelligible riot woke the row of us from slumber. The electric light, switched hurriedly on, revealed that the hour was three. In front of us, apparently on our terrace, a turmoil was proceeding of a character to wake the dead. Explosions of glass, what seemed the deeper note of crockery, strange shrieks of metal, bassoon-like and drum-like noises, a deafening roar. Turning off the light, with face pressed to the window, there were dimly to be distinguished phantom-objects descending from above our heads, a shower of vague orbs and bosses, splinters of light, a chaos of the indescribable. Presently the hubbub ceased, deep silence reigned again, and after whispered and bewildered confabulation from door to door, we fell again to dreamless sleep.
In the morning, the riot of the night was our only subject. The terrace in front of our windows showed not the slightest evidence of any disturbance, and we almost doubted our senses. At breakfast, the man who served us knew nothing; he had not wakened all night, he declared. Maarten Maartens, more and more intrigued, insisted on asking the head-waiter. The answer of that worthy was, "There was no disturbance at any time last night. If there had been, I could not have failed to hear it." Maarten Maartens broke from this sturdy liar, and went off to the bureau of the Hotel. Here he found the manager, with whom he was personally acquainted, seated at his desk; two or three other people were near. To
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