A TRAMP ABROAD By Mark Twain

in a sleeping-car. It actually takes him weeks to find

out that it is those persecuting torrents that have been

making all the mischief. It is time for him to get out

of Switzerland, then, for as soon as he has discovered

the cause, the misery is magnified several fold. The roar

of the torrent is maddening, then, for his imagination

is assisting; the physical pain it inflicts is exquisite.

When he finds he is approaching one of those streams,

his dread is so lively that he is disposed to fly the track

and avoid the implacable foe.

Eight or nine months after the distress of the torrents

had departed from me, the roar and thunder of the

streets of Paris brought it all back again. I moved

to the sixth story of the hotel to hunt for peace.

About midnight the noises dulled away, and I was

sinking to sleep, when I heard a new and curious sound;

I listened: evidently some joyous lunatic was softly

dancing a “double shuffle” in the room over my head.

I had to wait for him to get through, of course. Five long,

long minutes he smoothly shuffled away–a pause followed,

then something fell with a thump on the floor.

I said to myself “There–he is pulling off his boots–

thank heavens he is done.” Another slight pause–he went

to shuffling again! I said to myself, “Is he trying to see

what he can do with only one boot on?” Presently came

another pause and another thump on the floor. I said

“Good, he has pulled off his other boot–NOW he is done.”

But he wasn’t. The next moment he was shuffling again.

I said, “Confound him, he is at it in his slippers!”

After a little came that same old pause, and right after

it that thump on the floor once more. I said, “Hang him,

he had on TWO pair of boots!” For an hour that magician

went on shuffling and pulling off boots till he had shed

as many as twenty-five pair, and I was hovering on the verge

of lunacy. I got my gun and stole up there. The fellow

was in the midst of an acre of sprawling boots, and he had

a boot in his hand, shuffling it–no, I mean POLISHING it.

The mystery was explained. He hadn’t been dancing.

He was the “Boots” of the hotel, and was attending

to business.

CHAPTER XLIV

[I Scale Mont Blanc–by Telescope]

After breakfast, that next morning in Chamonix, we went

out in the yard and watched the gangs of excursioning

tourists arriving and departing with their mules and guides

and porters; they we took a look through the telescope

at the snowy hump of Mont Blanc. It was brilliant

with sunshine, and the vast smooth bulge seemed hardly

five hundred yards away. With the naked eye we could

dimly make out the house at the Pierre Pointue, which is

located by the side of the great glacier, and is more

than three thousand feet above the level of the valley;

but with the telescope we could see all its details.

While I looked, a woman rode by the house on a mule, and I

saw her with sharp distinctness; I could have described

her dress. I saw her nod to the people of the house,

and rein up her mule, and put her hand up to shield

her eyes from the sun. I was not used to telescopes;

in fact, I had never looked through a good one before;

it seemed incredible to me that this woman could be

so far away. I was satisfied that I could see all

these details with my naked eye; but when I tried it,

that mule and those vivid people had wholly vanished,

and the house itself was become small and vague. I tried

the telescope again, and again everything was vivid.

The strong black shadows of the mule and the woman were

flung against the side of the house, and I saw the mule’s

silhouette wave its ears.

The telescopulist–or the telescopulariat–I do not know

which is right–said a party were making a grand ascent,

and would come in sight on the remote upper heights,