Frankfort has another distinction—­it is the birthplace of the German alphabet; or at least of the German word for alphabet —­BUCHSTABEN.  They say that the first movable types were made on birch sticks—­BUCHSTABE—­hence the name.

I was taught a lesson in political economy in Frankfort.  I had brought from home a box containing a thousand very cheap cigars.  By way of experiment, I stepped into a little shop in a queer old back street, took four gaily decorated boxes of wax matches and three cigars, and laid down a silver piece worth 48 cents.  The man gave me 43 cents change.

In Frankfort everybody wears clean clothes, and I think we noticed that this strange thing was the case in Hamburg, too, and in the villages along the road.  Even in the narrowest and poorest and most ancient quarters of Frankfort neat and clean clothes were the rule.  The little children of both sexes were nearly always nice enough to take into a body’s lap.  And as for the uniforms of the soldiers, they were newness and brightness carried to perfection.  One could never detect a smirch or a grain of dust upon them.  The street-car conductors and drivers wore pretty uniforms which seemed to be just out of the bandbox, and their manners were as fine as their clothes.

In one of the shops I had the luck to stumble upon a book which has charmed me nearly to death.  It is entitled the legends of the Rhine from basle to Rotterdam, by F. J. Kiefer; translated by L. W. Garnham, B.A.

All tourists mention the Rhine legends—­in that sort of way which quietly pretends that the mentioner has been familiar with them all his life, and that the reader cannot possibly be ignorant of them—­but no tourist ever tells them.  So this little book fed me in a very hungry place; and I, in my turn, intend to feed my reader, with one or two little lunches from the same larder.  I shall not mar Garnharn’s translation by meddling with its English; for the most toothsome thing about it is its quaint fashion of building English sentences on the German plan —­and punctuating them accordingly to no plan at all.

In the chapter devoted to “Legends of Frankfort,” I find the following: 

“The knave of Bergen”

“In Frankfort at the Romer was a great mask-ball, at the coronation festival, and in the illuminated saloon, the clanging music invited to dance, and splendidly appeared the rich toilets and charms of the ladies, and the festively costumed Princes and Knights.  All seemed pleasure, joy, and roguish gaiety, only one of the numerous guests had a gloomy exterior; but exactly the black armor in which he walked about excited general attention, and his tall figure, as well as the noble propriety of his movements, attracted especially the regards of the ladies.  Who the Knight was?  Nobody could guess, for his Vizier