The Riddle of the Sands by Erskine Childers

Selecting the very humblest gasthaus I could discover, I laid down my bundle and called for beer, bread, and wurst. The landlord, as I had expected, spoke the Frisian dialect, so that though he was rather difficult to understand, he had no doubts about the purity of my own German high accent. He was a worthy fellow, and hospitably interested: "Did I want a bed? " "No; I was going on to Bensersiel," I said, "to sleep there, and take the morning postschiff to Langeoog Island. " (I had not forgotten our friends the twin giants and their functions.) "I was not an islander myself? " he asked. "No, but I had a married sister there; had just returned from a year's voyaging, and was going to visit her. " "By the way," I asked, "how are they getting on with the Benser Tief? " My friend shrugged his shoulders; it was finished, he believed. "And the connection to Wittmund? " "Under construction still. " "Langeoog would be going ahead then? " "Oh! he supposed so, but he did not believe in these newfangled schemes. " "But it was good for trade, I supposed? Esens would benefit in sending goods by the ‘tief' -- what was the traffic, by the way? " "Oh, a few more barge-loads than before of bricks, timber, coals, etc., but it would come to nothing he knew: aktiengesellschaften (companies) were an invention of the devil. A few speculators got them up and made money themselves out of land and contracts, while the shareholders they had hoodwinked starved. " "There's something in that," I conceded to this bigoted old conservative; "my sister at Langeoog rents her lodging-house from a man named Dollmann; they say he owns a heap of land about. I saw his yacht once -- pink velvet and electric light inside, they say -- "

"That's the name," said mine host, "that's one of them -- some sort of foreigner, I've heard; runs a salvage concern, too, Juist way."