ion: One inch
a day, say thirty feet a year; estimated distance to Zermatt, three and
one-eighteenth miles. Time required to go by glacier, A LITTLE OVER FIVE
HUNDRED YEARS! I said to myself, "I can WALK it quicker--and before I
will patronize such a fraud as this, I will do it."

When I revealed to Harris the fact that the passenger part of this
glacier--the central part--the lightning-express part, so to speak--was
not due in Zermatt till the summer of 2378, and that the baggage, coming
along the slow edge, would not arrive until some generations later, he
burst out with:

"That is European management, all over! An inch a day--think of that!
Five hundred years to go a trifle over three miles! But I am not a bit
surprised. It's a Catholic glacier. You can tell by the look of it. And
the management."

I said, no, I believed nothing but the extreme end of it was in a
Catholic canton.

"Well, then, it's a government glacier," said Harris. "It's all the
same. Over here the government runs everything--so everything's slow;
slow, and ill-managed. But with us, everything's done by private
enterprise--and then there ain't much lolling around, you can depend
on it. I wish Tom Scott could get his hands on this torpid old slab
once--you'd see it take a different gait from this."

I said I was sure he would increase the speed, if there was trade enough
to justify it.

"He'd MAKE trade," said Harris. "That's the difference between
governments and individuals. Governments don't care, individuals do. Tom
Scott would take all the trade; in two years Gorner stock would go to
two hundred, and inside of two more you would see all the other glaciers
under the hammer for taxes." After a reflective pause, Harris added, "A
little less than an inch a day; a little less than an INCH, mind you.
Well, I'm losing my reverence for glaciers."

I was feeling much the same way myself. I have traveled by canal-boat,
ox-wagon, raft, and by the Ephesus and Smyrna railway; but when it comes
down to good solid honest slow motion, I bet my money on the glacier. As
a means of passenger transportation, I consider the glacier a failure;
but as a vehicle of slow freight, I think she fills the bill. In the
matter of putting the fine shades on that line of business, I judge she
could teach the Germans something.

I ordered the men to break camp and prepare for the land journey to
Zermatt. At this moment a most interesting find was made; a dark object,