“I’m from Illinois,” said he.
“And I from New York.”
“Then we’re sure not to quarrel,” he rejoined, “for I’ve noticed that New-Yorkers and Westerners get along better together in Europe than Americans from any other parts of the country.”
I said that I had often noticed the same thing, without being able to explain it. There was a singular instinctive aversion between New-Yorkers themselves and also between them and Bostonians and Philadelphians. But, whenever New York and Chicago met in any foreign country, the fraternization was spontaneous. Then I took the liberty of asking my young friend why he waved his handkerchief on the end of a stick just before pulling up at the hotel.
“Oh! only to signal a fellow over there on the Murren. We had walked together up the Lauterbrunnen Valley, and he turned off to climb the Murren while I kept on for the Wengern Alp. We agreed to exchange signals from the tops of the two mountains, or foot-hills, or whatever else they should be called. But he hasn’t got up there yet, for I don’t see a flutter of his handkerchief.”
“Possibly because it is at least eight miles from here to Murren in an air-line,” I said, smiling.
The maiden, who had been listening with great interest to this dialogue, her tender eyes fixed on the younger of the two speakers all the time, here broke in to say:
“Perhaps you would like to look through the glass down there. That will show you everything on the Murren plain enough.” She spoke English with a foreign accent so delicate that types can not reproduce it.
“Thank you, miss,” said Excelsior, sweetly, “I shall be very glad. But let me order the lunch first.”