After viewing the situation at first hand the present writer is of the opinion that Mr. Blythe was quite right in his statements.  Certainly nothing is more soothing to the eye of the onlooker, nothing more restful to his soul, than to behold a group of Germans enjoying themselves in a normal manner.  And absolutely nothing is quite so ghastly sad as the sight of those same well-flushed, well-fleshed Germans cavorting about between the hours of two and four-thirty A.M., trying, with all the pachydermic ponderosity of Barnum’s Elephant Quadrille, to be professionally gay and cutuppish.  The Prussians must love their Kaiser dearly.  We sit up with our friends when they are dead; they stay up for him until they are ready to die themselves.

As is well known Berlin abounds in pleasure palaces, so called.  Enormous places these are, where under one widespreading roof are three or four separate restaurants of augmented size, not to mention winecellars and beer-caves below-stairs, and a dancehall or so and a Turkish bath, and a bar, and a skating rink, and a concert hall —­and any number of private dining rooms.  The German mind invariably associates size with enjoyment.

To these establishments, after his regular dinner, the Berliner repairs with his family, his friend or his guest.  There is one especially popular resort, a combination of restaurant and vaudeville theater, at which one eats an excellent dinner excellently served, and between courses witnesses the turns of a first-rate variety bill, always with the inevitable team of American coon shouters, either in fast colors or of the burnt-cork variety, sandwiched into the program somewhere.

In the Friedrichstrasse there is another place, called the Admiralspalast, which is even more attractive.  Here, inclosing a big, oval-shaped ice arena, balcony after balcony rises circling to the roof.  On one of these balconies you sit, and while you dine and after you have dined you look down on a most marvelous series of skating stunts.  In rapid and bewildering succession there are ballets on skates, solo skating numbers, skating carnivals and skating races.  Finally scenery is slid in on runners and the whole company, in costumes grotesque and beautiful, go through a burlesque that keeps you laughing when you are not applauding, and admiring when you are doing neither; while alternating lightwaves from overhead electric devices flood the picture with shifting, shimmering tides of color.  It is like seeing a Christmas pantomime under an aurora borealis.  In America we could not do these things —­at least we never have done them.  Either the performance would be poor or the provender would be highly expensive, or both.  But here the show is wonderful, and the victuals are good and not extravagantly priced, and everybody has a bully time.