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The last time I was in at Baumbach's in comes Von Gerhard an' " "Who are Baumbach's?" I interrupted. Blackie regarded me pityingly. "You ain't never been to Baumbach's? Why girl, if you don't know Baumbach's, you ain't never been properly introduced to Milwaukee. No wonder you ain't hep to the ways of this little community.
"Blackie here is responsible for my being initiated into the sticky mysteries of Baumbach's. I never should have discovered it if he had not offered to act as personal conductor. You know one another, I believe?" The two men shook hands across the table. There was something forced and graceless about the act. Blackie eyed Von Gerhard through a misty curtain of cigarette smoke.
"You know that what you say is not true," he said, slowly. "Well, we won't quibble. We we were just about to leave, weren't we Blackie?" "Just," said Blackie, rising. "Sorry t' see you drinkin' Baumbach's coffee, Doc. It ain't fair t' your patients." "Quite right," replied Von Gerhard; and rose with us. "I shall not drink it. I shall walk home with Mrs. Orme instead, if she will allow me.
She filled the paper cone, inserted the point of it into one end of a hollow pastry horn, and gently squeezed. Presto! A cream-filled Hornchen! "Oh, Blackie!" I gasped. "Come on. I want to go in and eat." As we elbowed our way to the rear room separated from the front shop only by a flimsy wooden partition, I expected I know not what. But surely this was not Blackie's much-vaunted Baumbach's!
Why, girl, that's Von Gerhard, the man who gives me one more year t' live. Look at everybody kowtowing to him. He don't favor Baumbach's often. Too busy patching up the nervous wrecks that are washed up on his shores." The tall figure in the doorway was glancing from table to table, nodding here and there to an acquaintance. His eyes traveled the length of the room. Now they were nearing us.
O Baumbach's, with your deliciously crumbling butter cookies and your kaffee kuchen, and your thick cream, and your thicker waitresses and your cockroaches, and your dinginess and your dowdy German ladies and your black, black Kaffee, where in this country is there another like you! Blackie, true to his promise, had hailed me from the doorway on the afternoon of the following day.
In the rush of the day's work I had quite forgotten about Blackie and Baumbach's. "Come, Kindchen!" he called. "Get your bonnet on. We will by Baumbach's go, no?" Ruefully I gazed at the grimy cuffs of my blouse, and felt of my dishevelled hair. "Oh, I'm afraid I can't go. I look so mussy. Haven't had time to brush up."
"Blackie, you're a dear to be so polite to an old married cratur' like me. Did you notice that is, does Ernst von Gerhard drop in often at Baumbach's?" I have visited Baumbach's. I have heard Milwaukee drinking its afternoon Kaffee.
He's been coming here ever' afternoon for twelve years, has a cup of coffee, game of chess, and a pow-wow with a bunch of cronies. If Baumbach's ever decide to paint the front of their shop or put in cut glass fixtures and handpainted china, Hugo Luders would serve an injunction on 'em. Next!"
There ain't what the s'ciety editor would call the proper ontong cordyal between you and the natives if you haven't had coffee at Baumbach's. It ain't hardly legal t' live in Milwaukee all this time without ever having been inside of B " "Stop!
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