books. They
seem to be laughing their ribs loose, and there's one girl there that
appears to be going all to pieces. I never saw such a man as you before.
I think you are the very last possibility in the way of an ass."
"What have I done?" I answered, with heat.
"What have you done? You've got up at half past seven o'clock in the
evening to see the sun rise, that's what you've done."
"And have you done any better, I'd like to know? I've always used to
get up with the lark, till I came under the petrifying influence of your
turgid intellect."
"YOU used to get up with the lark--Oh, no doubt--you'll get up with the
hangman one of these days. But you ought to be ashamed to be jawing
here like this, in a red blanket, on a forty-foot scaffold on top of the
Alps. And no end of people down here to boot; this isn't any place for
an exhibition of temper."
And so the customary quarrel went on. When the sun was fairly down, we
slipped back to the hotel in the charitable gloaming, and went to bed
again. We had encountered the horn-blower on the way, and he had tried
to collect compensation, not only for announcing the sunset, which we
did see, but for the sunrise, which we had totally missed; but we said
no, we only took our solar rations on the "European plan"--pay for what
you get. He promised to make us hear his horn in the morning, if we were
alive.
A TRAMP ABROAD, Part 5.
By Mark Twain
(Samuel L. Clemens)
First published in 1880
Illustrations taken from an 1880 First Edition
* * * * * *
ILLUSTRATIONS:
1. PORTRAIT OF THE AUTHOR
2. TITIAN'S MOSES
3. THE AUTHOR'S MEMORIES
178. EXCEEDINGLY COMFORTABLE
179. THE SUNRISE
180. THE RIGI-KULM
181. AN OPTICAL ILLUSION
182. TAIL PIECE
183. RAILWAY DOWN THE MOUNTAIN
184. SOURCE OF THE RHONE
185. A GLACIER TABLE
186. GLACIER OF GRINDELWALD
187. DAWN ON THE MOUNTAINS
188. TAIL PIECE
189. NEW AND OLD STYLE
190. ST NICHOLAS, AS A HERMIT
191. A LANDSLIDE
192. GOLDAU VALLEY BEFORE AND AFTER THE LANDSLIDE
193. THE WAY THEY DO IT
194. OUR GALLANT DRIVER
195. A MOUNTAIN PASS
196. "I'M OFUL DRY"
197. IT'S THE FASHION
198. WHAT WE EXPECTED
199. WE MISSED THE SCENERY
200. THE TOURISTS
201. THE YOUNG BRIDE
202. "IT WAS A FAMOUS VICTORY
203. PROMENADE IN INTERLAKEN
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