A TRAMP ABROAD By Mark Twain

over all other poets of being able to gratify them,

no matter what form they may take. He is fond of opera,

but not fond of sitting in the presence of an audience;

therefore, it has sometimes occurred, in Munich,

that when an opera has been concluded and the players

were getting off their paint and finery, a command has

come to them to get their paint and finery on again.

Presently the King would arrive, solitary and alone,

and the players would begin at the beginning and do the

entire opera over again with only that one individual

in the vast solemn theater for audience. Once he took

an odd freak into his head. High up and out of sight,

over the prodigious stage of the court theater is a maze

of interlacing water-pipes, so pierced that in case

of fire, innumerable little thread-like streams of

water can be caused to descend; and in case of need,

this discharge can be augmented to a pouring flood.

American managers might want to make a note of that.

The King was sole audience. The opera proceeded,

it was a piece with a storm in it; the mimic thunder

began to mutter, the mimic wind began to wail and sough,

and the mimic rain to patter. The King’s interest rose

higher and higher; it developed into enthusiasm. He cried

out:

“It is very, very good, indeed! But I will have real

rain! Turn on the water!”

The manager pleaded for a reversal of the command; said it

would ruin the costly scenery and the splendid costumes,

but the King cried:

“No matter, no matter, I will have real rain! Turn

on the water!”

So the real rain was turned on and began to descend in

gossamer lances to the mimic flower-beds and gravel walks

of the stage. The richly dressed actresses and actors

tripped about singing bravely and pretending not to mind it.

The King was delighted–his enthusiasm grew higher.

He cried out:

“Bravo, bravo! More thunder! more lightning! turn

on more rain!”

The thunder boomed, the lightning glared, the storm-winds raged,

the deluge poured down. The mimic royalty on the stage,

with their soaked satins clinging to their bodies,

slopped about ankle-deep in water, warbling their sweetest

and best, the fiddlers under the eaves of the state sawed

away for dear life, with the cold overflow spouting down

the backs of their necks, and the dry and happy King sat

in his lofty box and wore his gloves to ribbons applauding.

“More yet!” cried the King; “more yet–let loose all

the thunder, turn on all the water! I will hang the man

that raises an umbrella!”

When this most tremendous and effective storm that had

ever been produced in any theater was at last over,

the King’s approbation was measureless. He cried:

“Magnificent, magnificent! ENCORE! Do it again!”

But the manager succeeded in persuading him to recall

the encore, and said the company would feel sufficiently

rewarded and complimented in the mere fact that the

encore was desired by his Majesty, without fatiguing

him with a repetition to gratify their own vanity.

During the remainder of the act the lucky performers

were those whose parts required changes of dress;

the others were a soaked, bedraggled, and uncomfortable lot,

but in the last degree picturesque. The stage scenery

was ruined, trap-doors were so swollen that they wouldn’t

work for a week afterward, the fine costumes were spoiled,

and no end of minor damages were done by that remarkable storm.

It was royal idea–that storm–and royally carried out.

But observe the moderation of the King; he did not

insist upon his encore. If he had been a gladsome,

unreflecting American opera-audience, he probably would

have had his storm repeated and repeated until he drowned

all those people.

CHAPTER XI

[I Paint a “Turner”]

The summer days passed pleasantly in Heidelberg.

We had a skilled trainer, and under his instructions we

were getting our legs in the right condition for the

contemplated pedestrian tours; we were well satisfied

with the progress which we had made in the German language,

[1. See Appendix D for information concerning this

fearful tongue.] and more than satisfied with what we had