ining room with water running off us in trickles, until the head
waiter glared. And so all we saw of Switzerland was the interior of the
tobacconist's where we tried, unsuccessfully, to get some English baccy.
Then he went to bed while our garments were dried. We stayed in bed for
ten hours, reading, fairy tales and smoking and answering modestly
through the transom when any one asked us questions.

The next morning we overhauled our wardrobe. We will not particularize,
but we decided that one change of duds, after six weeks' bicycling, was
not enough of a wardrobe to face the Jungfrau and the national debt and
the child-labor problenm, not to speak of the anonymous President and
the other sights that matter (such as the Matterhorn). Also, our stock
of tobacco had run out, and German or French tobacco we simply cannot
smoke. Even if we could get along on substitute fumigants the issue of
garments was imperative. The nearest place where we could get any
clothes of the kind that we are accustomed to, the kind of clothes that
are familiarly symbolized by three well-known initials, was London. And
the only way we had to get to London was on our bicycle. We thought we
had better get busy. It's a long bike ride from Basel to London. So we
just went as far as the Basel Cathedral, so as not to seem too
unappreciative of all the treasures that Switzerland had been saving for
us for countless centuries; then we got on board our patient steed and
trundled off through Alsace.

That was in August, 1912, and we firmly intended to go back to
Switzerland the next year to have another look at, the rainfall and the
rest of the statistics and status quos. But the opportunity has not
come.

So that is why we wander disconsolately about Washington Square, trying
to make up our mind to unburden our bosom to the Swiss consul and tell
him the worst. But how can one go and interrupt a consul to tell him
that sort of thing? Perhaps he wouldn't understand it at all; he would
misunderstand our pathetic little story and be angry that we took up his
time. He wouldn't think that a shortage of tobacco and clothing was a
sufficient excuse for slighting William Tell and the Jungfrau. He
wouldn't appreciate the frustrated emotion and longing with which we
watch the little red cross at his front door, and think of all it means
to us and all it might have meant.

We took another turn around Washington Square, trying to embolden
ourself enough to go in