A TRAMP ABROAD By Mark Twain

knavish you have acted, and Knave of Bergen shall you

be called henceforth, and gladly the Black knight rose;

three cheers were given in honor of the Emperor,

and loud cries of joy testified the approbation with

which the Queen danced still once with the Knave of Bergen.”

CHAPTER II

Heidelberg

[Landing a Monarch at Heidelberg]

We stopped at a hotel by the railway-station. Next morning,

as we sat in my room waiting for breakfast to come up,

we got a good deal interested in something which was

going on over the way, in front of another hotel.

First, the personage who is called the PORTIER (who is

not the PORTER, but is a sort of first-mate of a hotel)

[1. See Appendix A] appeared at the door in a spick-and-span

new blue cloth uniform, decorated with shining brass buttons,

and with bands of gold lace around his cap and wristbands;

and he wore white gloves, too. He shed an official glance

upon the situation, and then began to give orders.

Two women-servants came out with pails and brooms

and brushes, and gave the sidewalk a thorough scrubbing;

meanwhile two others scrubbed the four marble steps

which led up to the door; beyond these we could see some

men-servants taking up the carpet of the grand staircase.

This carpet was carried away and the last grain of dust

beaten and banged and swept our of it; then brought back

and put down again. The brass stair-rods received an

exhaustive polishing and were returned to their places.

Now a troop of servants brought pots and tubs

of blooming plants and formed them into a beautiful

jungle about the door and the base of the staircase.

Other servants adorned all the balconies of the various

stories with flowers and banners; others ascended

to the roof and hoisted a great flag on a staff there.

Now came some more chamber-maids and retouched the sidewalk,

and afterward wiped the marble steps with damp cloths

and finished by dusting them off with feather brushes.

Now a broad black carpet was brought out and laid down the

marble steps and out across the sidewalk to the curbstone.

The PORTIER cast his eye along it, and found it was not

absolutely straight; he commanded it to be straightened;

the servants made the effort–made several efforts,

in fact–but the PORTIER was not satisfied. He finally

had it taken up, and then he put it down himself and got

it right.

At this stage of the proceedings, a narrow bright

red carpet was unrolled and stretched from the top

of the marble steps to the curbstone, along the center

of the black carpet. This red path cost the PORTIER

more trouble than even the black one had done. But he

patiently fixed and refixed it until it was exactly right

and lay precisely in the middle of the black carpet.

In New York these performances would have gathered a mighty

crowd of curious and intensely interested spectators;

but here it only captured an audience of half a dozen

little boys who stood in a row across the pavement,

some with their school-knapsacks on their backs and their

hands in their pockets, others with arms full of bundles,

and all absorbed in the show. Occasionally one of them

skipped irreverently over the carpet and took up a position

on the other side. This always visibly annoyed the PORTIER.

Now came a waiting interval. The landlord, in plain clothes,

and bareheaded, placed himself on the bottom marble step,

abreast the PORTIER, who stood on the other end of the

same steps; six or eight waiters, gloved, bareheaded,

and wearing their whitest linen, their whitest cravats,

and their finest swallow-tails, grouped themselves

about these chiefs, but leaving the carpetway clear.

Nobody moved or spoke any more but only waited.

In a short time the shrill piping of a coming train was heard,

and immediately groups of people began to gather in the street.

Two or three open carriages arrived, and deposited some

maids of honor and some male officials at the hotel.

Presently another open carriage brought the Grand Duke

of Baden, a stately man in uniform, who wore the handsome

brass-mounted, steel-spiked helmet of the army on his head.