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: