“Passionately.”

“Have you felt bored, on this trip?”

“Not all the time, part of it.”

“That’s it!—­you see you ought to go around and get acquainted, and talk.  That’s my way.  That’s the way I always do—­I just go ’round, ’round, ’round and talk, talk, talk—­I never get bored.  You been up the Rigi yet?”

“No.”

“Going?”

“I think so.”

“What hotel you going to stop at?”

“I don’t know.  Is there more than one?”

“Three.  You stop at the Schreiber—­you’ll find it full of Americans.  What ship did you say you came over in?”

“City of Antwerp.”

“German, I guess.  You going to Geneva?”

“Yes.”

“What hotel you going to stop at?”

“Hotel de l’’Ecu de G’en`eve.”

“Don’t you do it!  No Americans there!  You stop at one of those big hotels over the bridge—­they’re packed full of Americans.”

“But I want to practice my Arabic.”

“Good gracious, do you speak Arabic?”

“Yes—­well enough to get along.”

“Why, hang it, you won’t get along in Geneva—­they don’t speak Arabic, they speak French.  What hotel are you stopping at here?”

“Hotel Pension-Beaurivage.”

“Sho, you ought to stop at the Schweitzerhof.  Didn’t you know the Schweitzerhof was the best hotel in Switzerland? —­look at your Baedeker.”

“Yes, I know—­but I had an idea there warn’t any
Americans there.”

“No Americans!  Why, bless your soul, it’s just alive with them!  I’m in the great reception-room most all the time.  I make lots of acquaintances there.  Not as many as I did at first, because now only the new ones stop in there —­the others go right along through.  Where are you from?”

“Arkansaw.”

“Is that so?  I’m from New England—­New Bloomfield’s my town when I’m at home.  I’m having a mighty good time today, ain’t you?”

“Divine.”

“That’s what I call it.  I like this knocking around, loose and easy, and making acquaintances and talking.  I know an American, soon as I see him; so I go and speak to him and make his acquaintance.  I ain’t ever bored, on a trip like this, if I can make new acquaintances and talk.  I’m awful fond of talking when I can get hold of the right kind of a person, ain’t you?”

“I prefer it to any other dissipation.”

“That’s my notion, too.  Now some people like to take a book and sit down and read, and read, and read, or moon around yawping at the lake or these mountains and things, but that ain’t my way; no, sir, if they like it, let ’em do it, I don’t object; but as for me, talking’s what I like.  You been up the Rigi?”

“Yes.”

“What hotel did you stop at?”

“Schreiber.”

“That’s the place!—­I stopped there too.  Full of Americans,
wasn’t it?  It always is—­always is.  That’s what they say. 
Everybody says that.  What ship did you come over in?”