The life of the place, which chiefly is bound up in the consideration of
where to eat the three simple meals allowed, is curious. In the morning,
after the disagreeable necessity of drinking three or more glassfuls of
the hot water, every man and every lady spends a half hour deciding
where to breakfast and what kind of roll and what kind of ham they shall
eat. The bakers' shops are crowded by people picking out the special
rusk or special roll they prefer, and these are carried off in little
pink bags. Two slices of ham are next bought from one of the shops
where men in white clothes slice all day long at the lean Prague ham or
the fatter Westphalian. No man is really a judge of ham until he has
argued for a quarter of an hour every morning outside the shop in the
Carlsbad High Street as to what breed of pig gives the most appetising
slice. Bag in hand, ham in pocket, the man undergoing a cure walks to
the Elephant in the Alte Wiese, or to one of the little restaurants
which stud the valley and the hillsides, delightful little buildings
with great glass shelters for rainy days and lawns and flower-beds and
creepers, where neat waitresses in black, with their Christian names in
white metal worn as a brooch, or great numbers pinned to their
shoulders, receive you with laughing welcome, set a red-clothed table
for you, and bring you the hot milk and boiled eggs which complete your
repast.
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