It is an establishment
of very modest pretensions situated in one of the side streets leading to
a great thoroughfare. As we are in Munich, however, the side street is
broad and clean, the pavement is well swept and the adjoining houses have
an air of solid respectability and wealth. At the point where the street
widens to an irregular shape on the downward slope there is a neat little
iron kiosque completely covered with brilliant advertisements, printed in
black Gothic letters upon red and yellow paper. The point of vivid colour
is not disagreeable, for it relieves the neutral tints of brick and brown
stone, and arrests the eye, long wearied with the respectable parade of
buildings. The tobacconist's shop is, indeed, the most shabby, or, to
speak more correctly, the least smartly new among its fellow-shops,
wherein dwell, in consecutive order, a barber, a watchmaker, a
pastry-cook, a shoemaker and a colour-man. In spite of its unattractive
exterior, however, the establishment of "Christian Fischelowitz, from
South Russia," enjoys a very considerable reputation. Within the high,
narrow shop there is good store of rare tobaccos, from the mild Kir to the
Imperial Samson, the aromatic Dubec and the pungent Swary. The dusty
window beside the narrow door exhibits, it is true, only a couple of tall,
dried tobacco plants set in flower-pots, a carelessly arranged collection
of cedar and pasteboard boxes for cigars and cigarettes, and a
fantastically constructed Swiss cottage, built entirely of cigarettes and
fine cut yellow leaf, with little pieces of glass set in for windows.
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