"A TRAMP ABROAD."

Thames Star, Volume XI, Issue 3630, 14 August 1880, Page 4

"A TRAMP ABROAD."

Beyond doubt tbe new book from tbe pen of Mark Twain is his masterpiece. It is lively in tone, and instructive from, beginning to end. This extract from his experiences in tbe Swiss mountains, after being out in a soaking rain, is so pleasantly told that we make an extract:—

"We stripped and went to bed, and sent our clothes down to be baked. All tbe horde of soaked tourists did tbe same. That chaos of clothing got mixed in the kitchen, and there were consequences. I did net get back the same drawers I sent down when our things came up at 6.15; I got a pair on a new plan. They were merely a pair of long, white ruffle-cuffed sleeves, bitched together at the top with a narrow band, and they did not come quite down to my knees. They were pretty enough, but they made me feel like two people, and disconnected at that. The man must have been an idiot who got himself up that way to rough it in the Swiss mountains.

The shirt they brought me was shorter than the drawers, and hadn't any sleeves to it, —at least it hadn't anything more than what Mr Darwin would call "rudimentary " sleeves. These had edging around them, but tbe bosom was ridiculously plain. The knit silk undershirt they brought me was on a new plan, and was really a sensible thing; it opened behind, and had pockets in it to put tbe shoulder-blades in; but they did not seem to fit mine. They gave my bobtail coat to somebody else; and sent me an ulster suitable for a giraffe. I had to tie my collar on, because there was no button behind on the foolish little shirt.

When I went to dinner a long stranger recognised his ulster as soon as he saw the tail of it following me in, but nobody claimed my shirt and drawers, though I described them as well as I was able. I I gave them to the chambermaid that night when I went to bed, and she probably found the owner for my things were on a chair beside my door in the morning.