He placed a coin on the zinc bar, heard the cash register whirr, and waved away the change.

The bartender took hold of his hand. “You gave me two marks.”

“Did I?” he said distractedly. Now he was probably just making a ridiculous impression: the absentminded bourgeois, the mama’s boy. “I thought it was just one.” He tried to extricate his hand.

The bartender still held it fast. “You got one twenty coming.”

“Yes,” he said, “I made a mistake. I intended to give you a twenty-pfennig tip.”

“But you gave me a two-mark piece. I can show it to you.”

“No need to. I believe you. If you’d just let go of my hand, I’ll take a mark back.”

The bartender let go of his hand. “A mark twenty. Gotta keep things straight,” he said.

“I’m not trying to cheat you.” He was indignant about his captured hand.

“Not the point,” said the bartender. “Gotta keep things straight.”

He could feel the young men breathing down his neck. “Well now they’re straight again, your things,” he said, irritated against his will. “Now can I drink this stuff in peace?”

“Yes you may,” said the bartender. “You’re allowed to drink as much as you like here. Not just this stuff, as you call it. Here you’re allowed to drink till you fall down. As long as you pay, that is.”

“I did pay,” uncontrollable anger sharpened his voice, “didn’t I?”

“Yes, with a two-mark piece. Didn’t I give you correct change?”

“You did indeed. Now I’d like to be left in peace.”

“And you will be, mister,” said the bartender. “But that doesn’t mean that anybody can tell me to keep quiet. Not in my own bar. When I say you were mistaken, it’s to your advantage.”

“To my advantage?” This was starting to be amusing.

“Yes, of course to your advantage!” said the bartender. “You’d’ve been throwing a mark twenty away. And when I point out your mistake, you should be grateful, mister, and not tell me to shut up in my own bar. And if you don’t like it, mister, then you know where the door is.”

“Now kindly allow me to drink the cola I paid for in peace.”

“I’ll allow you,” said the bartender. “But nobody’s ever told me to shush up in my own bar before, not in thirty-five years in the business.” He raised his voice to a threatening lament. “There’s been a bar right here on this spot for more than a hundred years, mister. These young folks can tell you if you don’t believe me. They’re Hamburgers born and bred, mister. This bar survived the terror and it’ll survive whatever else comes along. It was here when seafaring was still a Christian occupation.”

He thought he detected in the bartender’s voice the compulsion to spin a yarn. In a chatty tone, he said, “Must have been nice back then. Too bad the old interior didn’t survive. Mermaids and ships in a bottle, right? Were they destroyed in the air raids?”