THE ENGLISH GARDENS
213
formation. Also he read.an article on Munich which had been
written by Meredith Wilder, and he narrowed his eyes when he
came to a poem which was part of the article. "What a drag,
man," he said to himself. And this he stored away, too.
He stepped from the train in the warm morning spring sun–
light and glumly started for the exits. Soon old habits prevailed
and within twenty paces his walk became a saunter and he
looked around with his habitual speculative eye. He saw. that
T oiletten M {inner
was off to the right and decided to check that,
later. Ahead he saw signs for exchange above brass framed win–
dows set in a brown marble wall. He stood in front of the ex–
change rates sign as he searched in his pocket for a traveler's
check. He seemed to remember that in dealing in tens you moved
a decimal point and added a zero.
Havi~g
done this in his mind,
he moved over, straddling his canvas sack, and leaned on the
counter. All during the transactions he kept one finger on the
top edge of his passport, as the clerk copied from it, and craned
to watch the computer machine-his sullen dark unshaved
suspicion forced the clerk to use this machine. Nicolas had fig–
ured the amount to be forty marks and twenty-five pfgs (what–
ever they were); he was pleased, but straight-faced, to receive
forty-two
marks and thirty, "Forty-two marks and thirty pfen–
nigs," the clerk explained," twenty pfennigs for exchange
charge."
"Ja," Anthony answered in German, giving the clerk one
last grave glance, and telling himself he would come back here
unless this joker got fired in the meantime. He stuffed papers,
money, and passport away and, picking up his sack, headed off
for the first class restaurant. Imagining himself two marks plus
to the good, he intended having a beer.
He chose a table next to three fellow Americans and listened
while he drank his beer. He had just decided that they were only
college students and that there was nothing to be had there when
he heard:
Hank: How'd you make out, then?
