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The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Innocents Abroad, Part 2 of 6 by Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net Title: The Innocents Abroad, Part 2 of 6 Author: Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) Release Date: June 15, 2004 [EBook #5689] Language: English Character set encoding: ASCII *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE INNOCENTS ABROAD, PART 2 OF 6 *** Produced by David Widger INNOCENTS ABROAD by Mark Twain [From an 1869--1st Edition] Part 2. CHAPTER XI. We are getting foreignized rapidly and with facility. We are getting reconciled to halls and bedchambers with unhomelike stone floors and no carpets--floors that ring to the tread of one's heels with a sharpness that is death to sentimental musing. We are getting used to tidy, noiseless waiters, who glide hither and thither, and hover about your back and your elbows like butterflies, quick to comprehend orders, quick to fill them; thankful for a gratuity without regard to the amount; and always polite--never otherwise than polite. That is the strangest curiosity yet--a really polite hotel waiter who isn't an idiot. We are getting used to driving right into the central court of the hotel, in the midst of a fragrant circle of vines and flowers, and in the midst also of parties of gentlemen sitting quietly reading the paper and smoking. We are getting used to ice frozen by artificial process in ordinary bottles --the only kind of ice they have here. We are getting used to all these things, but we are not getting used to carrying our own soap. We are sufficiently civilized to carry our own combs and toothbrushes, but this thing of having to ring for soap every time we wash is new to us and not pleasant at all. We think of it just after we get our heads and faces thoroughly wet or just when we think we have been in the bathtub long enough, and then, of course, an annoying delay follows. These Marseillaises make Marseillaise hymns and Marseilles vests and Marseilles soap for all the world, but they never sing their hymns or wear their vests or wash with their soap themselves. We have learned to go through the lingering routine of the table d'hote with patience, with serenity, wi
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