"The Bar" at that moment; I'm sure he would have engaged Lenz on the spot—for roles, for example, where the sea serpent suddenly appears with a bellow in front of the shipwrecked sailor.
Gottfried soon had himself in hand again.
I cast an imploring look at him to vanish.
He responded with a villainous grin, settled his coat and came forward.
I knew what was ahead and attacked immediately. "Have you seen Fraulein Bomblatt home already?" I asked to neutralize him at once.
"Yes," he replied without betraying, by so much as an eyelid, that he had never heard of Fraulein Bomblatt till that second. "She sent you her love and hopes you will call her up first thing in the morning."
That was quite a good comeback.
I nodded.
"I'll do so.
I hope she will buy the car."
Lenz opened his mouth once more. I kicked him on the shin and gave him such a look that he stopped short with a smirk.
We drank a few glasses.
I only sidecars, with plenty of lemon. I did not mean to get myself in wrong again.
Gottfried was in form.
"I've just been round to your place," said he. "Wanted to fetch you.
Afterwards I went to the amusement park.
They've got a magnificent new merry-go-round.
What about coming?" He looked at Patricia Hollmann.
"At once," she replied, delighted.
"Then let us start now," said I.
I was glad to get outside.
In the open the business was simpler.
First the barrel-organs—advance posts of the amusement park.
Melancholy sweet droning.
On the threadbare velvet covers of the organs occasionally a parrot, or a half-frozen little monkey in a red twill jacket. . . .
Then the harsh voices of vendors of crockery ware, glass-cutters, Turkish delight, balloons, suitings. . . .
The cold blue light and the smell of the carbide lamps. . . .
The fortunetellers, the astrologers, the pepper-cake tents, the swing boats, the sideshows—and lastly, clamourous with music, gay, glittering, lit-up like palaces, the circling turrets of the merry-go-rounds. . . .
"All aboard, lads," yelled Lenz as with streaming hair he made a wild leap for the scenic railway. It had the loudest orchestra.
At every round six trumpeters stepped out of six gilded niches, turned to the east and the west, blew a blast, flourished their instruments and retired.
It was glorious.
We were sitting in a large swan and lurching up and down.
The world glittered and glided, it reeled and fell back into a black tunnel through which we hurtled to a beating of drums, immediately to be greeted again with trumpets and splendour.
"Onward!" Gottfried steered the way to a flying roundabout with airships and aeroplanes.
We entered a zeppelin and did three rounds in it.
Rather out of breath, we got down again.
"And now for the devil's wheel," announced Lenz.
The devil's wheel Was a large, flat disc, slightly raised in the middle, which revolved ever faster and faster and on which one had to keep upright.
Gottfried boarded' it with about twenty others.
He stepped it like a maniac and received special applause.
At the finish he was alone with a cook who had a stern like a Clydesdale.
That wily person planted herself, as the business became more difficult, plumb in the centre of the disc, while Gottfried swept prancing around her. The rest were already all under.
At last fate claimed the last of the romantics also; he staggered into the arms of the cook, and in close embrace rolled over the edge.
When he joined us again he had the cook on his arm.. He dubbed her, without more ado, Lina.
Lina smiled embarrassment.
He asked her what she would drink with him.
Lina replied that beer was said to be good for thirst.
The two disappeared into the Bavarian beer garden.
"And we?
Where do we go now?" asked Patricia Hollmann with shining eyes.