pleasure, 'm sure. Wish you much success."

Then he removed his gracious presence. It is a great and solemn thing to
have a grandfather.

I have not purposed to misrepresent this boy in any way, for what little
indignation he excited in me soon passed and left nothing behind it but
compassion. One cannot keep up a grudge against a vacuum. I have tried
to repeat this lad's very words; if I have failed anywhere I have at
least not failed to reproduce the marrow and meaning of what he said.
He and the innocent chatterbox whom I met on the Swiss lake are the most
unique and interesting specimens of Young America I came across
during my foreign tramping. I have made honest portraits of them, not
caricatures.

The Grandson of twenty-three referred to himself five or six times as
an "old traveler," and as many as three times (with a serene complacency
which was maddening) as a "man of the world." There was something very
delicious about his leaving Boston to her "narrowness," unreproved and
uninstructed.

I formed the caravan in marching order, presently, and after riding down
the line to see that it was properly roped together, gave the command to
proceed. In a little while the road carried us to open, grassy land. We
were above the troublesome forest, now, and had an uninterrupted view,
straight before us, of our summit--the summit of the Riffelberg.

We followed the mule-road, a zigzag course, now to the right, now to
the left, but always up, and always crowded and incommoded by going and
coming files of reckless tourists who were never, in a single instance,
tied together. I was obliged to exert the utmost care and caution, for
in many places the road was not two yards wide, and often the lower side
of it sloped away in slanting precipices eight and even nine feet deep.
I had to encourage the men constantly, to keep them from giving way to
their unmanly fears.

We might have made the summit before night, but for a delay caused by
the loss of an umbrella. I was allowing the umbrella to remain lost, but
the men murmured, and with reason, for in this exposed region we stood
in peculiar need of protection against avalanches; so I went into camp
and detached a strong party to go after the missing article.

The difficulties of the next morning were severe, but our courage
was high, for our goal was near. At noon we conquered the last
impediment--we stood at last upon the summit, and without the loss of a
single man