A TRAMP ABROAD By Mark Twain

The apprentice begins at the bottom of the ladder

and masters the several grades one after the other.

Just as in our country printing-offices the apprentice

first learns how to sweep out and bring water;

then learns to “roll”; then to sort “pi”; then to set type;

and finally rounds and completes his education with

job-work and press-work; so the landlord-apprentice serves

as call-boy; then as under-waiter; then as a parlor waiter;

then as head waiter, in which position he often has

to make out all the bills; then as clerk or cashier;

then as portier. His trade is learned now, and by and

by he will assume the style and dignity of landlord,

and be found conducting a hotel of his own.

Now in Europe, the same as in America, when a man has

kept a hotel so thoroughly well during a number of years

as to give it a great reputation, he has his reward.

He can live prosperously on that reputation. He can let

his hotel run down to the last degree of shabbiness and

yet have it full of people all the time. For instance,

there is the Ho^tel de Ville, in Milan. It swarms with mice

and fleas, and if the rest of the world were destroyed

it could furnish dirt enough to start another one with.

The food would create an insurrection in a poorhouse;

and yet if you go outside to get your meals that hotel

makes up its loss by overcharging you on all sorts

of trifles–and without making any denials or excuses

about it, either. But the Ho^tel de Ville’s old excellent

reputation still keeps its dreary rooms crowded with travelers

who would be elsewhere if they had only some wise friend

to warn them.

APPENDIX B

Heidelberg Castle

Heidelberg Castle must have been very beautiful before

the French battered and bruised and scorched it two hundred

years ago. The stone is brown, with a pinkish tint,

and does not seem to stain easily. The dainty and elaborate

ornamentation upon its two chief fronts is as delicately

carved as if it had been intended for the interior of a

drawing-room rather than for the outside of a house.

Many fruit and flower clusters, human heads and grim

projecting lions’ heads are still as perfect in every detail

as if they were new. But the statues which are ranked

between the windows have suffered. These are life-size

statues of old-time emperors, electors, and similar

grandees, clad in mail and bearing ponderous swords.

Some have lost an arm, some a head, and one poor fellow

is chopped off at the middle. There is a saying that if

a stranger will pass over the drawbridge and walk across

the court to the castle front without saying anything,

he can made a wish and it will be fulfilled. But they

say that the truth of this thing has never had a chance

to be proved, for the reason that before any stranger can

walk from the drawbridge to the appointed place, the beauty

of the palace front will extort an exclamation of delight from

him.

A ruin must be rightly situated, to be effective.

This one could not have been better placed. It stands

upon a commanding elevation, it is buried in green words,

there is no level ground about it, but, on the contrary,

there are wooded terraces upon terraces, and one looks

down through shining leaves into profound chasms and

abysses where twilight reigns and the sun cannot intrude.

Nature knows how to garnish a ruin to get the best effect.

One of these old towers is split down the middle, and one

half has tumbled aside. It tumbled in such a way as to

establish itself in a picturesque attitude. Then all it

lacked was a fitting drapery, and Nature has furnished that;

she has robed the rugged mass in flowers and verdure,

and made it a charm to the eye. The standing half

exposes its arched and cavernous rooms to you, like open,

toothless mouths; there, too, the vines and flowers have

done their work of grace. The rear portion of the tower

has not been neglected, either, but is clothed with a