But then he was always verging on a spasm anyway—­spasms were his normal state.

Chapter XX

The Combustible Captain of Vienna

Our guide in Vienna was the most stupid human being I ever saw.  He was profoundly ignorant on a tremendously wide range of subjects; he had a most complete repertoire of ignorance.  He must have spent years of study to store up so much interesting misinformation.  This guide was much addicted to indulgence of a peculiar form of twisted English and at odd moments given to the consumption of a delicacy of strictly Germanic origin, known in the language of the Teutons as a rollmops.  A rollmops consists of a large dilled cucumber, with a pickled herring coiled round it ready to strike, in the design of the rattlesnake-and-pinetree flag of the Revolution, the motto in both instances being in effect:  “Don’t monkey with the buzz saw!” He carried his rollmops in his pocket and frequently, in art galleries or elsewhere, would draw it out and nibble it, while disseminating inaccuracies touching on pictures and statues and things.

Among other places, he took us to the oldest church in Vienna.  As I now recollect it was six hundred years old.  No; on second thought I will say it must have been older than that.  No church could possibly become so moldy and mangy looking as that church in only six hundred years.  The object in this church that interested me most was contained in an ornate glass case placed near the altar and alongside the relics held to be sacred.  It did not exactly please me to gaze at this article; but the thing had a fascination for me; I will not deny that.

It seems that a couple of centuries ago there was an officer in Vienna, a captain in rank and a Frenchman by birth, who, in the midst of disorders and licentiousness, lived so godly and so sanctified a life that his soldiers took it into their heads that he was really a saint, or at least had the making of a first-rate saint in him, and, therefore, must lead a charmed life.  So—­thus runs the tale—­some of them laid a wager with certain Doubting Thomases, also soldiers, that neither by fire nor water, neither by rope nor poison, could he take harm to himself.  Finally they decided on fire for the test.  So they waited until he slept—­those simple, honest, chuckle-headed chaps—­and then they slipped in with a lighted torch and touched him off.

Well, sir, the joke certainly was on those soldiers.  He burned up with all the spontaneous enthusiasm of a celluloid comb.  For qualities of instantaneous combustion he must have been the equal of any small-town theater that ever was built—­with one exit.  He was practically a total loss and there was no insurance.