A TRAMP ABROAD By Mark Twain

boys–last call–I’m off for Tennessee with a good

leg and a gay heart, early in the morning.'”

There was a pause and a silence–except the noise

of the wind and the pelting snow. Mr. Lykins said,

impatiently:

“Well?”

Riley said:

“Well,–that was thirty years ago.”

“Very well, very well–what of it?”

“I’m great friends with that old patriarch. He comes

every evening to tell me good-by. I saw him an hour ago–

he’s off for Tennessee early tomorrow morning–as usual;

said he calculated to get his claim through and be off

before night-owls like me have turned out of bed.

The tears were in his eyes, he was so glad he was going

to see his old Tennessee and his friends once more.”

Another silent pause. The stranger broke it:

“Is that all?”

“That is all.”

“Well, for the TIME of night, and the KIND of night,

it seems to me the story was full long enough. But what’s

it all FOR?”

“Oh, nothing in particular.”

“Well, where’s the point of it?”

“Oh, there isn’t any particular point to it. Only, if you

are not in TOO much of a hurry to rush off to San Francisco

with that post-office appointment, Mr. Lykins, I’d advise

you to ‘PUT UP AT GADSBY’S’ for a spell, and take it easy.

Good-by. GOD bless you!”

So saying, Riley blandly turned on his heel and left

the astonished school-teacher standing there, a musing

and motionless snow image shining in the broad glow

of the street-lamp.

He never got that post-office.

To go back to Lucerne and its fishers, I concluded,

after about nine hours’ waiting, that the man who proposes

to tarry till he sees something hook one of those well-fed

and experienced fishes will find it wisdom to “put up

at Gadsby’s” and take it easy. It is likely that a fish

has not been caught on that lake pier for forty years;

but no matter, the patient fisher watches his cork there

all the day long, just the same, and seems to enjoy it.

One may see the fisher-loafers just as thick and contented

and happy and patient all along the Seine at Paris,

but tradition says that the only thing ever caught there

in modern times is a thing they don’t fish for at all–the

recent dog and the translated cat.

CHAPTER XXVII

[I Spare an Awful Bore]

Close by the Lion of Lucerne is what they call the

“Glacier Garden”–and it is the only one in the world.

It is on high ground. Four or five years ago,

some workmen who were digging foundations for a house

came upon this interesting relic of a long-departed age.

Scientific men perceived in it a confirmation of their

theories concerning the glacial period; so through

their persuasions the little tract of ground was bought

and permanently protected against being built upon.

The soil was removed, and there lay the rasped and guttered

track which the ancient glacier had made as it moved

along upon its slow and tedious journey. This track

was perforated by huge pot-shaped holes in the bed-rock,

formed by the furious washing-around in them of boulders

by the turbulent torrent which flows beneath all glaciers.

These huge round boulders still remain in the holes;

they and the walls of the holes are worn smooth by

the long-continued chafing which they gave each other

in those old days. It took a mighty force to churn

these big lumps of stone around in that vigorous way.

The neighboring country had a very different shape,

at that time–the valleys have risen up and become hills,

since, and the hills have become valleys. The boulders

discovered in the pots had traveled a great distance,

for there is no rock like them nearer than the distant

Rhone Glacier.

For some days we were content to enjoy looking at the blue

lake Lucerne and at the piled-up masses of snow-mountains

that border it all around–an enticing spectacle,

this last, for there is a strange and fascinating beauty

and charm about a majestic snow-peak with the sun blazing

upon it or the moonlight softly enriching it–but finally

we concluded to try a bit of excursioning around on

a steamboat, and a dash on foot at the Rigi. Very well,