The agent supplied an assortment of furniture for a consideration, and they were soon settled in the attractive, roomy place. Clemens and the children, arriving somewhat later, expressed themselves as satisfied.
Their contentment was somewhat premature. When they began to go out socially, which was very soon, and friends inquired as to their location, they noticed that the address produced a curious effect. Semi- acquaintances said, "Ah, yes, Kornerstrasse"; acquaintances said, "Dear me, do you like it?" An old friend exclaimed, "Good gracious! How in the world did you ever come to locate there?" Then they began to notice what they had not at first seen. Kornerstrasse was not disreputable, but it certainly was not elegant. There were rag warehouses across the street and women who leaned out the windows to gossip. The street itself was thronged with children. They played on a sand pile and were often noisy and seldom clean. It was eminently not the place for a distinguished man of letters. The family began to be sensitive on the subject of their address.
Clemens, of course, made humor out of it. He wrote a newspaper letter on the subject, a burlesque, naturally, which the family prevailed upon him not to print. But the humiliation is out of it now, and a bit of its humor may be preserved. He takes upon himself the renting of the place, and pictures the tour of inspection with the agent's assistant.
He was greatly moved when they came to the street and said, softly and lovingly:
"Ah, Korner Street, Korner Street, why did I not think of you before! A place fit for the gods, dear sir. Quiet?--notice how still it is; and remember this is noonday--noonday. It is but one block long, you see, just a sweet, dear little nest hid away here in the heart of the great metropolis, its presence and its sacred quiet unsuspected by the restless crowds that swarm along the stately thoroughfares yonder at its two extremities. And----"
"This building is handsome, but I don't think much of the others. They look pretty commonplace, compared with the rest of Berlin."
"Dear! dear! have you noticed that? It is just an affectation of the nobility. What they want----"
"The nobility? Do they live in----"
"In this street? That is good! very good, indeed! I wish the Duke of Sassafras-Hagenstein could hear you say that. When the Duke first moved in here he----"
"Does he live in this street?"
"Him! Well, I should say so! Do you see the big, plain house over there with the placard in the third floor window? That's his house."
"The placard that says 'Furnished rooms to let'? Does he keep boarders?"
"What an idea! Him! With a rent-roll of twelve hundred thousand marks a year? Oh, positively this is too good."
"Well, what does he have that sign up for?"
The assistant took me by the buttonhole & said, with a merry light beaming in his eye:
"Why, my dear sir, a person would know you are new to Berlin just by your innocent questions. Our aristocracy, our old, real, genuine aristocracy, are full of the quaintest eccentricities, eccentricities inherited for centuries, eccentricities which they are prouder of than they are of their titles, and that sign-board there is one of them. They all hang them out. And it's regulated by an unwritten law. A baron is entitled to hang out two, a count five, a duke fifteen----"
"Then they are all dukes over on that side, I sup----"
"Every one of them. Now the old Duke of Backofenhofenschwartz not the present Duke, but the last but one, he----"
"Does he live over the sausage-shop in the cellar?"
"No, the one farther along, where the eighteenth yellow cat is chewing the door-mat----"
"But all the yellow cats are chewing the door-mats."
"Yes, but I mean the eighteenth one. Count. No, never mind; there's a lot more come.