“Oh, my!  Do you realize, Mark, what a symposium it is to be?  I do.  To begin with, I am thoroughly tired, and the rest will be worth everything.  To walk with you and talk with you for weeks together —­why, it’s my dream of luxury!”

Meantime the struggle with the “awful German language” went on.  Rosa, the maid, was required to speak to the children only in German, though little Clara at first would have none of it.  Susy, two years older, tried, and really made progress, but one day she said, pathetically: 

   “Mama, I wish Rosa was made in English.”

But presently she was writing to “Aunt Sue” (Mrs. Crane) at Quarry Farm: 

   “I know a lot of German; everybody says I know a lot.  I give you a
   million dollars to see you, and you would give two hundred dollars
   to see the lovely woods we see.”

Twichell arrived August 1st.  Clemens met him at Baden-Baden, and they immediately set forth on a tramp through the Black Forest, excursioning as they pleased and having a blissful time.  They did not always walk.  They were likely to take a carriage or a donkey-cart, or even a train, when one conveniently happened along.  They did not hurry, but idled and talked and gathered flowers, or gossiped with wayside natives —­picturesque peasants in the Black Forest costume.  In due time they crossed into Switzerland and prepared to conquer the Alps.

The name Mark Twain had become about as well known in Europe as it was in America.  His face, however, was less familiar.  He was not often recognized in these wanderings, and his pen-name was carefully concealed.  It was a relief to him not to be an object of curiosity and lavish attention.  Twichell’s conscience now and then prompted him to reveal the truth.  In one of his letters home he wrote how a young man at a hotel had especially delighted in Mark’s table conversation, and how he (Twichell) had later taken the young man aside and divulged the speaker’s identity.

   “I could not forbear telling him who Mark was, and the mingled
   surprise and pleasure his face exhibited made me glad I had done so.”

They did not climb many of the Alps on foot.  They did scale the Rigi, after which Mark Twain was not in the best walking trim; though later they conquered Gemmi Pass—­no small undertaking—­that trail that winds up and up until the traveler has only the glaciers and white peaks and the little high-blooming flowers for company.

All day long the friends would tramp and walk together, and when they did not walk they would hire a diligence or any vehicle that came handy, but, whatever their means of travel the joy of comradeship amid those superb surroundings was the same.

In Twichell’s letters home we get pleasant pictures of the Mark Twain of that day: 

“Mark, to-day, was immensely absorbed in flowers.  He scrambled around and gathered a great variety, and manifested the intensest pleasure in them . . . .  Mark is splendid to walk with amid such grand scenery, for he talks so well about it, has such a power of strong, picturesque expression.  I wish you might have heard him today.  His vigorous speech nearly did justice to the things we saw.”

And in another place: