to say. Out with it, man.
When a fellow chances upon a witty thing, he has a right to repeat it;
besides, you have reason on your side. A loser is always wrong. But
after all, Bob, whether the game be war, or marriage, or a horse-race,
one's skill has very little to say to it Make the wisest combinations
that ever were fashioned, and you'll lose sometimes. Draw your card at
hazard, and you'll win. If you only saw the fellow that beat me t'other
day in a girl's affections--as dreary a dog as ever you met in your
life, without manliness, without 'go' in him--and yet he wasn't a
curate. I know you suspect he was a curate."

"If you come through this affair all right, what do you intend to turn
to, Calvert?" said the other, who really felt a sort of interest in his
fortunes.

"I have thought of several things: the Church--the Colonies--Patent
Fuel--Marriage--Turkish Baths, and a Sympathy Society for Suffering
Nationalities, with a limited liability to all who subscribe fifty
pounds and upwards."

"But, seriously, have you any plans?"

"Ten thousand plans! I have plans enough to ruin all Threadneedle
Street; but what use are plans? What's the good of an architect in a
land were there are no bricks, no mortar, and no timber? When I've
shot Graham, I've a plan how to make my escape out of Switzerland; but,
beyond that, nothing; not one step, I promise you. See, yonder is Monte
Rosa; how grand he looks in the still calm air of the morning. What a
gentleman a mountain is! how independent of the changeful fortunes of
the plains, where grass succeeds tillage, and what is barley to-day, may
be a brick-field to-morrow; but the mountain is ever the same--proud and
cold if you will, but standing above all the accidents of condition, and
asserting itself by qualities which are not money-getting. I'd like to
live in a land of mountains, if it were not for the snobs that come to
climb them."

"But why should they be snobs?"

"I don't know; perhaps the mountains like it. There, look yonder, our
road leads along that ledge till we reach Chiasso, about twelve miles
off; do you think you can last that long without breakfast? There,
there, don't make that pitiful face; you shall have your beefsteak,
and your chocolate, and your eggs, and all the other claims of
your Anglo-Saxon nature, whose birthright it is to growl for every
twenty-four hours, and 'grub' every two."

They gained the little inn at Orta by the evening, and learned,