Once, while I was hungrily taking in one of these surprises, and doing my best to get all I possibly could of it while it should last, I was interrupted by a young and care-free voice:
"You're an American, I think--so'm I."
He was about eighteen, or possibly nineteen; slender and of medium height; open, frank, happy face; a restless but independent eye; a snub nose, which had the air of drawing back with a decent reserve from the silky new-born mustache below it until it should be introduced; a loosely hung jaw, calculated to work easily in the sockets. He wore a low-crowned, narrow-brimmed straw hat, with a broad blue ribbon around it which had a white anchor embroidered on it in front; nobby short-tailed coat, pantaloons, vest, all trim and neat and up with the fashion; red-striped stockings, very low-quarter patent-leather shoes, tied with black ribbon; blue ribbon around his neck, wide-open collar; tiny diamond studs; wrinkleless kids; projecting cuffs, fastened with large oxidized silver sleeve-buttons, bearing the device of a dog's face--English pug. He carries a slim cane, surmounted with an English pug's head with red glass eyes. Under his arm he carried a German grammar--Otto's. His hair was short, straight, and smooth, and presently when he turned his head a moment, I saw that it was nicely parted behind. He took a cigarette out of a dainty box, stuck it into a meerschaum holder which he carried in a morocco case, and reached for my cigar. While he was lighting, I said:
"Yes--I am an American."
"I knew it--I can always tell them. What ship did you come over in?"
"HOLSATIA."
"We came in the BATAVIA--Cunard, you know. What kind of passage did you have?"
"Tolerably rough."
"So did we. Captain said he'd hardly ever seen it rougher. Where are you from?"
"New England."
"So'm I. I'm from New Bloomfield. Anybody with you?"
"Yes--a friend."
"Our whole family's along. It's awful slow, going around alone--don't you think so?"
"Rather slow."
"Ever been over here before?"
"Yes."
"I haven't. My first trip. But we've been all around--Paris and everywhere. I'm to enter Harvard next year. Studying German all the time, now. Can't enter till I know German. I know considerable French--I get along pretty well in Paris, or anywhere where they speak French. What hotel are you stopping at?"
"Schweitzerhof."
"No! is that so? I never see you in the reception-room. I go to the reception-room a good deal of the time, because there's so many Americans there. I make lots of acquaintances. I know an American as soon as I see him--and so I speak to him and make his acquaintance. I like to be always making acquaintances--don't you?"
"Lord, yes!"
"You see it breaks up a trip like this, first rate. I never got bored on a trip like this, if I can make acquaintances and have somebody to talk to. But I think a trip like this would be an awful bore, if a body couldn't find anybody to get acquainted with and talk to on a trip like this. I'm fond of talking, ain't you?
"Passionately."
"Have you felt bored, on this trip?"
"Not all the time, part of it."
"That's it!--you see you ought to go around and get acquainted, and talk. That's my way. That's the way I always do--I just go 'round, 'round, 'round and talk, talk, talk--I never get bored. You been up the Rigi yet?"
"No."
"Going?"
"I think so."
"What hotel you going to stop at?"
"I don't know. Is there more than one?"
"Three. You stop at the Schreiber--you'll find it full of Americans. What ship did you say you came over in?"
"CITY OF ANTWERP."
"German, I guess. You going to Geneva?"
"Yes."
"What hotel you going to stop at?"
"Hotel de l''Ecu de G'en`eve."
"Don't you do it! No Americans there! You stop at one of those big hotels over the bridge--they're packed full of Americans."
"But I want to practice my Arabic."
"Good gracious, do you speak Arabic?"
"Yes--well enough to get along."
"Why, hang it, you won't get along in Geneva--THEY don't speak Arabic, they speak French.