“Tell you, you cabbage, you son of a cauliflower? I tell you I have been in the editorial business for 14 years, and it is the first time I ever heard of a man’s having to know anything in order to edit a newspaper. You turnip! Who review the books? People who never wrote one. Who criticize the Indian campaigns? Gentlemen who do not know a war-whoop from a wigwam, and who never have had to pluck arrows out of the several members of their families to build the evening camp-fire with. Who write the temperance appeals? Folks who will never draw another sober breath till their grave. Who edit the agricultural papers, you? Men, as a general thing, who fail in the poetry line, novel line, drama line, city-editor line, and finally end up with articles on agriculture. You try to tell me anything about the newspaper business! I tell you that the less a man knows the bigger the noise he makes. I leave, sir. Since I have been treated as you have treated me, I am perfectly willing to go. But I have done my duty. I have fulfilled my contract as far as I was permitted to do it. I said I could make your paper of interest to all classes – and I have. I said I could run your circulation up to 20,000 copies, and if I had had two more weeks I’d have done it. You are the loser by this rupture, not me, Pie-plant. Adios.”
I then left.
Playing the Courier
A time would come when we must go to Geneva, and from thence, by a series of day-long journeys, to Bayreuth in Bavaria. I should have to have a courier, of course, to take care of so considerable a party as mine.
But I procrastinated. The time slipped along, and at last I woke up one day to the fact that we were ready to move and had no courier. I then decided I would make the first stage without help – I did it.
I brought the party from Aix to Geneva by myself – four people. The distance was two hours and more, and there was one change of cars. There was not an accident of any kind, except leaving a trunk and some other matters on the platform – a thing which can hardly be called an accident, it is so common. So I offered to conduct the party all the way to Bayreuth.
This was a mistake, though it did not seem so at the time. There was more detail than I thought there would be: 1. Two persons whom we had left in a Genevan pension some weeks before must be collected and brought to the hotel; 2. I must notify the people on the Grand Quay who store trunks to bring seven of our stored trunks to the hotel and carry back seven which they would find in the lobby; 3. I must find out what part of Europe Bayreuth was in and buy seven railway tickets for that point; 4. I must send a telegram to a friend in the Netherlands; 5. It was now 2 in the afternoon, and we must be ready for the first night train and make sure of sleeping-car tickets; 6. I must draw money at the bank.
It seemed to me that the sleeping-car tickets must be the most important thing, so I went to the station myself to make sure. I applied for the tickets, and they asked me which route I wanted to go by, and that embarrassed me. There were so many people around, and I did not know anything about the routes and did not suppose there were going to be two. So I judged it best to go back, map out the road and come again.
I took a cab, and on my way up-stairs at the hotel I remembered that I was out of cigars. I thought it would be well to get some while I remembered it. It was only round the corner. I asked the cabman to wait where he was. Thinking of the telegram to my friend in the Netherlands, I forgot the cigars and the cab. I was going to ask the hotel people to send the telegram, but as I could not be far from the post office, I thought I would do it myself.
The post office was further than I had supposed. I found the place at last and wrote the telegram and handed it in. The clerk was a severe-looking man, and he began to fire French questions at me in such a liquid form that I could not separate his words from each other. I got embarrassed again. But an Englishman stepped up and said the clerk wanted to know where he was to send the telegram. I could not tell him, because it was not my telegram. I explained that I was merely sending it for a member of my party. But nothing would satisfy the clerk but the address. So I said that if he insisted that much I would go back and get it.
However, I thought I would go and collect those lacking two persons first. Then I remembered the cab was still waiting for me at the hotel; so I called another cab and told the man to go down and fetch it to the post office and wait till I came.
I had a long, hot walk to collect those people, and when I got there they couldn’t come with me because they had heavy satchels and must have a cab. I went away to find one, but noticed that I had reached the neighborhood of the Grand Quay – at least I thought I had – so I decided to save time by arranging about the trunks. After a while, although I did not find the Grand Quay, I found a cigar shop, and remembered about the cigars. I said I was going to Bayreuth, and wanted enough cigars for the journey. The man asked me which route I was going to take. I said I did not know. He said he would recommend me to go by Zurich and various other places which he named, and offered to sell me seven second-class through tickets for $22 each. I was already tired of riding second-class on first-class tickets, so I took him up.[7]
By and by I found Natural & Co.’s storage office, and told them to send seven of our trunks to the hotel and put them in the lobby. It seemed to me that I was not delivering the whole of the message, still it was all I could find in my head.
Next I found the bank and asked for some money, but I had left my letter of credit somewhere and was not able to draw. I remembered now that I must have left it lying on the table where I wrote my telegram; so I got a cab and drove to the post office and went upstairs. They said that a letter of credit had indeed been left on the table, but that it was now in the hands of the police authorities. So it would be necessary for me to go there and prove property. They sent a boy with me, and we went out the back way and walked a couple of miles and found the place. And then I remembered about my cabs, and asked the boy to send them to me when he got back to the post office. Then I was told that the Mayor had gone to dinner. I thought I would go to dinner myself, but the officer on duty thought differently, and I stayed.
The Mayor returned at half past 10, but said it was too late to do anything – come at 9.30 in the morning. The officer wanted to keep me all night, and said I was a suspicious-looking person, and probably did not own the letter of credit, and didn’t know what a letter of credit was, but merely wanted to get it because I was probably a person that would want anything he could get, whether it was valuable or not. But the Mayor said he saw nothing suspicious about me. So I thanked him and he set me free, and I went home in my three cabs.
As I was awfully tired and in no condition to answer questions. I thought I would not disturb the Expedition at that time of night. There was a vacant room I knew of at the other end of the hall. But a watch had been set, the Expedition had been anxious about me. The Expedition sat on four chairs in a row, with shawls and things all on, satchels and guide-books in lap. They had been sitting like that for four hours. Yes, and they were waiting – waiting for me.
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