A TRAMP ABROAD By Mark Twain

to claim one little matter of superiority in our manners;

a lady may traverse our streets all day, going and coming

as she chooses, and she will never be molested by any man;

but if a lady, unattended, walks abroad in the streets

of London, even at noonday, she will be pretty likely

to be accosted and insulted–and not by drunken sailors,

but by men who carry the look and wear the dress of gentlemen.

It is maintained that these people are not gentlemen,

but are a lower sort, disguised as gentlemen. The case

of Colonel Valentine Baker obstructs that argument,

for a man cannot become an officer in the British army

except he hold the rank of gentleman. This person,

finding himself alone in a railway compartment with

an unprotected girl–but it is an atrocious story,

and doubtless the reader remembers it well enough.

London must have been more or less accustomed to Bakers,

and the ways of Bakers, else London would have been

offended and excited. Baker was “imprisoned”–in a parlor;

and he could not have been more visited, or more overwhelmed

with attentions, if he had committed six murders and then–

while the gallows was preparing–“got religion”–after

the manner of the holy Charles Peace, of saintly memory.

Arkansaw–it seems a little indelicate to be trumpeting forth

our own superiorities, and comparisons are always odious,

but still–Arkansaw would certainly have hanged Baker.

I do not say she would have tried him first, but she would have

hanged him, anyway.

Even the most degraded woman can walk our streets unmolested,

her sex and her weakness being her sufficient protection.

She will encounter less polish than she would in the

old world, but she will run across enough humanity to make

up for it.

The music of a donkey awoke us early in the morning,

and we rose up and made ready for a pretty formidable

walk–to Italy; but the road was so level that we took

the train.. We lost a good deal of time by this, but it

was no matter, we were not in a hurry. We were four

hours going to Chamb`ery. The Swiss trains go upward

of three miles an hour, in places, but they are quite safe.

That aged French town of Chamb`ery was as quaint and crooked

as Heilbronn. A drowsy reposeful quiet reigned in the back

streets which made strolling through them very pleasant,

barring the almost unbearable heat of the sun.

In one of these streets, which was eight feet wide,

gracefully curved, and built up with small antiquated houses,

I saw three fat hogs lying asleep, and a boy (also asleep)

taking care of them. From queer old-fashioned windows

along the curve projected boxes of bright flowers, and over

the edge of one of these boxes hung the head and shoulders

of a cat–asleep. The five sleeping creatures were the

only living things visible in that street. There was not

a sound; absolute stillness prevailed. It was Sunday;

one is not used to such dreamy Sundays on the continent.

In our part of the town it was different that night.

A regiment of brown and battered soldiers had arrived home

from Algiers, and I judged they got thirsty on the way.

They sang and drank till dawn, in the pleasant open air.

We left for Turin at ten the next morning by a railway which

was profusely decorated with tunnels. We forgot to take

a lantern along, consequently we missed all the scenery.

Our compartment was full. A ponderous tow-headed Swiss woman,

who put on many fine-lady airs, but was evidently more

used to washing linen than wearing it, sat in a corner

seat and put her legs across into the opposite one,

propping them intermediately with her up-ended valise.

In the seat thus pirated, sat two Americans, greatly incommoded

by that woman’s majestic coffin-clad feet. One of them

begged, politely, to remove them. She opened her wide eyes

and gave him a stare, but answered nothing. By and by he

preferred his request again, with great respectfulness.

She said, in good English, and in a deeply offended tone,

that she had paid her passage and was not going to be