[pg!145]
UP THE AIRY MOUNTAIN.
“Will you walk into my parlor?” said every innkeeper from Chur to St. Moritz, and our minds were half absorbed in contemplation of the scenery and half in resisting the allurements of these Swiss spiders, all of whom declared with many grimaces and shrugs that we could not accomplish the distance between the two places in one day.
“Does not the regular post go through in one day?” we inquire. “Then why not we by extra post?”
“You are too late, madame.”
“We are not so heavy as the diligence. We can go faster.”
“Impossible, madame.”
“Why impossible?”
“Not precisely impossible; but it would be better, ah, yes, madame, far better, to remain here,”—with the sweetest of smiles,—“and go on to St. Moritz to-morrow.”
They knew this was nonsense. We knew it was nonsense. They knew that we knew that it was nonsense. We had borne all that it was fitting we should bear.