What ship did you come over in?"
"CITY OF CHESTER."
"Oh, yes--Inman line. We came in the BATAVIA--Cunard you know. What kind of a passage did you have?"
"Pretty fair."
"That was luck. We had it awful rough. Captain said he'd hardly seen it rougher. Where are you from?"
"New Jersey."
"So'm I. No--I didn't mean that; I'm from New England. New Bloomfield's my place. These your children?--belong to both of you?"
"Only to one of us; they are mine; my friend is not married."
"Single, I reckon? So'm I. Are you two ladies traveling alone?"
"No--my husband is with us."
"Our whole family's along. It's awful slow, going around alone--don't you think so?"
"I suppose it must be."
"Hi, there's Mount Pilatus coming in sight again. Named after Pontius Pilate, you know, that shot the apple off of William Tell's head. Guide-book tells all about it, they say. I didn't read it--an American told me. I don't read when I'm knocking around like this, having a good time. Did you ever see the chapel where William Tell used to preach?"
"I did not know he ever preached there."
"Oh, yes, he did. That American told me so. He don't ever shut up his guide-book. He knows more about this lake than the fishes in it. Besides, they CALL it 'Tell's Chapel'--you know that yourself. You ever been over here before?"
"Yes."
"I haven't. It's 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. This book's Otto's grammar. It's a mighty good book to get the ICH HABE GEHABT HABEN's out of. But I don't really study when I'm knocking around this way. If the notion takes me, I just run over my little old ICH HABE GEHABT, DU HAST GEHABT, ER HAT GEHABT, WIR HABEN GEHABT, IHR HABEN GEHABT, SIE HABEN GEHABT --kind of 'Now-I-lay-me-down-to-sleep' fashion, you know, and after that, maybe I don't buckle to it for three days. It's awful undermining to the intellect, German is; you want to take it in small doses, or first you know your brains all run together, and you feel them sloshing around in your head same as so much drawn butter. But French is different; FRENCH ain't anything. I ain't any more afraid of French than a tramp's afraid of pie; I can rattle off my little J'AI, TU AS, IL A, and the rest of it, just as easy as a-b-c. I get along pretty well in Paris, or anywhere where they speak French. What hotel are you stopping at?"
"The Schweitzerhof."
"No! is that so? I never see you in the big reception-room. I go in there a good deal of the time, because there's so many Americans there. I make lots of acquaintances. You been up the Rigi yet?"
"No."
"Going?"
"We think of it."
"What hotel you going to stop at?"
"I don't know."
"Well, then you stop at the Schreiber--it's full of Americans. What ship did you come over in?"
"CITY OF CHESTER."
"Oh, yes, I remember I asked you that before. But I always ask everybody what ship they came over in, and so sometimes I forget and ask again. You going to Geneva?"
"Yes."
"What hotel you going to stop at?"
"We expect to stop in a pension."
"I don't hardly believe you'll like that; there's very few Americans in the pensions. What hotel are you stopping at here?"
"The Schweitzerhof."
"Oh, yes. I asked you that before, too. But I always ask everybody what hotel they're stopping at, and so I've got my head all mixed up with hotels. But it makes talk, and I love to talk. It refreshes me up so--don't it you--on a trip like this?"
"Yes--sometimes."
"Well, it does me, too. As long as I'm talking I never feel bored--ain't that the way with you?"
"Yes--generally. But there are exception to the rule."
"Oh, of course. _I_ don't care to talk to everybody, MYSELF. If a person starts in to jabber-jabber-jabber about scenery, and history, and pictures, and all sorts of tiresome things, I get the fan-tods mighty soon. I say 'Well, I must be going now--hope I'll see you again'--and then I take a walk.