no real need for hurry, for the guide-book made the walking-distance from Waeggis to the summit only three hours and a quarter.  I say “apparently,” because the guide-book had already fooled us once—­about the distance from Allerheiligen to Oppenau—­and for aught I knew it might be getting ready to fool us again.  We were only certain as to the altitudes —­we calculated to find out for ourselves how many hours it is from the bottom to the top.  The summit is six thousand feet above the sea, but only forty-five hundred feet above the lake.  When we had walked half an hour, we were fairly into the swing and humor of the undertaking, so we cleared for action; that is to say, we got a boy whom we met to carry our alpenstocks and satchels and overcoats and things for us; that left us free for business.  I suppose we must have stopped oftener to stretch out on the grass in the shade and take a bit of a smoke than this boy was used to, for presently he asked if it had been our idea to hire him by the job, or by the year?  We told him he could move along if he was in a hurry.  He said he wasn’t in such a very particular hurry, but he wanted to get to the top while he was young.  We told him to clear out, then, and leave the things at the uppermost hotel and say we should be along presently.  He said he would secure us a hotel if he could, but if they were all full he would ask them to build another one and hurry up and get the paint and plaster dry against we arrived.  Still gently chaffing us, he pushed ahead, up the trail, and soon disappeared.  By six o’clock we were pretty high up in the air, and the view of lake and mountains had greatly grown in breadth and interest.  We halted awhile at a little public house, where we had bread and cheese and a quart or two of fresh milk, out on the porch, with the big panorama all before us—­and then moved on again.

Ten minutes afterward we met a hot, red-faced man plunging down the mountain, making mighty strides, swinging his alpenstock ahead of him, and taking a grip on the ground with its iron point to support these big strides.  He stopped, fanned himself with his hat, swabbed the perspiration from his face and neck with a red handkerchief, panted a moment or two, and asked how far to Waeggis.  I said three hours.  He looked surprised, and said: 

“Why, it seems as if I could toss a biscuit into the lake from here, it’s so close by.  Is that an inn, there?”

I said it was.

“Well,” said he, “I can’t stand another three hours, I’ve had enough today; I’ll take a bed there.”

I asked: 

“Are we nearly to the top?”

“Nearly to the top?  Why, bless your soul, you haven’t really started, yet.”

I said we would put up at the inn, too.  So we turned back and ordered a hot supper, and had quite a jolly evening of it with this Englishman.