The name Mark Twain had become about as well known in Europe as it was in America. His face, however, was less familiar. He was not often recognized in these wanderings, and his pen-name was carefully concealed. It was a relief to him not to be an object of curiosity and lavish attention. Twichell's conscience now and then prompted him to reveal the truth. In one of his letters home he wrote how a young man at a hotel had especially delighted in Mark's table conversation, and how he (Twichell) had later taken the young man aside and divulged the speaker's identity.
"I could not forbear telling him who Mark was, and the mingled surprise and pleasure his face exhibited made me glad I had done so."
They did not climb many of the Alps on foot. They did scale the Rigi, after which Mark Twain was not in the best walking trim; though later they conquered Gemmi Pass—no small undertaking—that trail that winds up and up until the traveler has only the glaciers and white peaks and the little high-blooming flowers for company.
All day long the friends would tramp and walk together, and when they did not walk they would hire a diligence or any vehicle that came handy, but, whatever their means of travel the joy of comradeship amid those superb surroundings was the same.
In Twichell's letters home we get pleasant pictures of the Mark Twain of that day:
"Mark, to-day, was immensely absorbed in flowers. He scrambled around and gathered a great variety, and manifested the intensest pleasure in them . . . . Mark is splendid to walk with amid such grand scenery, for he talks so well about it, has such a power of strong, picturesque expression. I wish you might have heard him today. His vigorous speech nearly did justice to the things we saw."
And in another place:
"He can't bear to see the whip used, or to see a horse pull hard. To-day when the driver clucked up his horse and quickened his pace a little, Mark said, 'The fellow's got the notion that we were in a hurry.'"
Another extract refers to an incident which Mark Twain also mentions in
"A Tramp Abroad:" [8]
"Mark is a queer fellow. There is nothing so delights him as a swift, strong stream. You can hardly get him to leave one when once he is in the influence of its fascinations. To throw in stones and sticks seems to afford him rapture."