are continually peppering into their
literature, with a pretense of knowing that language--what excuse can
they offer? The foreign words and phrases which they use have their
exact equivalents in a nobler language--English; yet they think they
'adorn their page' when they say STRASSE for street, and BAHNHOF for
railway-station, and so on--flaunting these fluttering rags of poverty
in the reader's face and imagining he will be ass enough to take
them for the sign of untold riches held in reserve. I will let your
'learning' remain in your report; you have as much right, I suppose, to
'adorn your page' with Zulu and Chinese and Choctaw rubbish as others of
your sort have to adorn theirs with insolent odds and ends smouched from
half a dozen learned tongues whose A-B ABS they don't even know."

When the musing spider steps upon the red-hot shovel, he first exhibits
a wild surprise, then he shrivels up. Similar was the effect of these
blistering words upon the tranquil and unsuspecting Agent. I can be
dreadfully rough on a person when the mood takes me.

CHAPTER XXXI

[Alp-scaling by Carriage]

We now prepared for a considerable walk--from Lucerne to Interlaken,
over the Bruenig Pass. But at the last moment the weather was so good
that I changed my mind and hired a four-horse carriage. It was a huge
vehicle, roomy, as easy in its motion as a palanquin, and exceedingly
comfortable.

We got away pretty early in the morning, after a hot breakfast, and
went bowling over a hard, smooth road, through the summer loveliness of
Switzerland, with near and distant lakes and mountains before and about
us for the entertainment of the eye, and the music of multitudinous
birds to charm the ear. Sometimes there was only the width of the road
between the imposing precipices on the right and the clear cool water on
the left with its shoals of uncatchable fish skimming about through the
bars of sun and shadow; and sometimes, in place of the precipices, the
grassy land stretched away, in an apparently endless upward slant,
and was dotted everywhere with snug little chalets, the peculiarly
captivating cottage of Switzerland.

The ordinary chalet turns a broad, honest gable end to the road, and
its ample roof hovers over the home in a protecting, caressing way,
projecting its sheltering eaves far outward. The quaint windows are
filled with little panes, and garnished with white muslin curtains,
and brightened with boxes of blooming f