A Tramp Abroad Part 23

"No! is that so? I never see you in the reception-room. I go to the reception-room a good deal of the time, because there's so many Americans there. I make lots of acquaintances. I know an American as soon as I see him--and so I speak to him and make his acquaintance. I like to be always making acquaintances--don't you?"

"Lord, yes!"

"You see it breaks up a trip like this, first rate. I never got bored on a trip like this, if I can make acquaintances and have somebody to talk to. But I think a trip like this would be an awful bore, if a body couldn't find anybody to get acquainted with and talk to on a trip like this. I'm fond of talking, ain't you?

"Pa.s.sionately."

"Have you felt bored, on this trip?"

"Not all the time, part of it."

"That's it!--you see you ought to go around and get acquainted, and talk. That's my way. That's the way I always do--I just go 'round, 'round, 'round and talk, talk, talk--I never get bored. You been up the Rigi yet?"

"No."

"Going?"

"I think so."

"What hotel you going to stop at?"

"I don't know. Is there more than one?"

"Three. You stop at the Schreiber--you'll find it full of Americans.

What ship did you say you came over in?"

"_City of Antwerp_."

"German, I guess. You going to Geneva?"

"Yes."

"What hotel you going to stop at?"

"Hotel de l'Ecu de Geneve."

"Don't you do it! No Americans there! You stop at one of those big hotels over the bridge--they're packed full of Americans."

"But I want to practice my Arabic."

"Good gracious, do you speak Arabic?"

"Yes--well enough to get along."

"Why, hang it, you won't get along in Geneva--_they_ don't speak Arabic, they speak French. What hotel are you stopping at here?"

"Hotel Pension-Beaurivage."

"Sho, you ought to stop at the Schweitzerhof. Didn't you know the Schweitzerhof was the best hotel in Switzerland?--look at your Baedeker."

"Yes, I know--but I had an idea there warn't any Americans there."

"No Americans! Why, bless your soul, it's just alive with them! I'm in the great reception-room most all the time. I make lots of acquaintances there. Not as many as I did at first, because now only the new ones stop in there--the others go right along through. Where are you from?"

"Arkansaw."

"Is that so? I'm from New England--New Bloomfield's my town when I'm at home. I'm having a mighty good time today, ain't you?"

"Divine."

"That's what I call it. I like this knocking around, loose and easy, and making acquaintances and talking. I know an American, soon as I see him; so I go and speak to him and make his acquaintance. I ain't ever bored, on a trip like this, if I can make new acquaintances and talk. I'm awful fond of talking when I can get hold of the right kind of a person, ain't you?"

"I prefer it to any other dissipation."

"That's my notion, too. Now some people like to take a book and sit down and read, and read, and read, or moon around yawping at the lake or these mountains and things, but that ain't my way; no, sir, if they like it, let 'em do it, I don't object; but as for me, talking's what _I_ like. You been up the Rigi?"

"Yes."

"What hotel did you stop at?"

"Schreiber."

"That's the place!--I stopped there too, _full_ of Americans, _wasn't_ it? It always is--always is. That's what they say. Everybody says that.

What ship did you come over in?"

"_Ville De Paris_."

"French, I reckon. What kind of a pa.s.sage did ... excuse me a minute, there's some Americans I haven't seen before."

And away he went. He went uninjured, too--I had the murderous impulse to harpoon him in the back with my alpenstock, but as I raised the weapon the disposition left me; I found I hadn't the heart to kill him, he was such a joyous, innocent, good-natured numbskull.

Half an hour later I was sitting on a bench inspecting, with strong interest, a n.o.ble monolith which we were skimming by--a monolith not shaped by man, but by Nature's free great hand--a ma.s.sy pyramidal rock eighty feet high, devised by Nature ten million years ago against the day when a man worthy of it should need it for his monument. The time came at last, and now this grand remembrancer bears Schiller's name in huge letters upon its face. Curiously enough, this rock was not degraded or defiled in any way. It is said that two years ago a stranger let himself down from the top of it with ropes and pulleys, and painted all over it, in blue letters bigger than those in Schiller's name, these words:

"Try Sozodont;" "Buy Sun Stove Polish;" "Helmbold's Buchu;" "Try Benzaline for the Blood."

He was captured and it turned out that he was an American. Upon his trial the judge said to him:

"You are from a land where any insolent that wants to is privileged to profane and insult Nature, and, through her, Nature's G.o.d, if by so doing he can put a sordid penny in his pocket. But here the case is different. Because you are a foreigner and ignorant, I will make your sentence light; if you were a native I would deal strenuously with you. Hear and obey:--You will immediately remove every trace of your offensive work from the Schiller monument; you pay a fine of ten thousand francs; you will suffer two years' imprisonment at hard labor; you will then be horsewhipped, tarred and feathered, deprived of your ears, ridden on a rail to the confines of the canton, and banished forever. The severest penalties are omitted in your case--not as a grace to you, but to that great republic which had the misfortune to give you birth."

The steamer's benches were ranged back to back across the deck. My back hair was mingling innocently with the back hair of a couple of ladies. Presently they were addressed by some one and I overheard this conversation:

"You are Americans, I think? So'm I."

"Yes--we are Americans."

"I knew it--I can always tell them. What ship did you come over in?"

"_City of Chester_."