I put a hundred and sixteen men at work, and they rebuilt the chalet from its own debris in fifteen minutes.  It was a good deal more picturesque than it was before, too.  The man said we were now on the Feil-Stutz, above the Schwegmatt—­information which I was glad to get, since it gave us our position to a degree of particularity which we had not been accustomed to for a day or so.  We also learned that we were standing at the foot of the Riffelberg proper, and that the initial chapter of our work was completed.

We had a fine view, from here, of the energetic Visp, as it makes its first plunge into the world from under a huge arch of solid ice, worn through the foot-wall of the great Gorner Glacier; and we could also see the Furggenbach, which is the outlet of the Furggen Glacier.

The mule-road to the summit of the Riffelberg passed right in front of the chalet, a circumstance which we almost immediately noticed, because a procession of tourists was filing along it pretty much all the time. [1] The chaleteer’s business consisted in furnishing refreshments to tourists.  My blast had interrupted this trade for a few minutes, by breaking all the bottles on the place; but I gave the man a lot of whiskey to sell for Alpine champagne, and a lot of vinegar which would answer for Rhine wine, consequently trade was soon as brisk as ever.

1.  “Pretty much” may not be elegant English, but it is
    high time it was.  There is no elegant word or phrase
    which means just what it means.—­M.T.

Leaving the Expedition outside to rest, I quartered myself in the chalet, with Harris, proposing to correct my journals and scientific observations before continuing the ascent.  I had hardly begun my work when a tall, slender, vigorous American youth of about twenty-three, who was on his way down the mountain, entered and came toward me with that breeze self-complacency which is the adolescent’s idea of the well-bred ease of the man of the world.  His hair was short and parted accurately in the middle, and he had all the look of an American person who would be likely to begin his signature with an initial, and spell his middle name out.  He introduced himself, smiling a smirky smile borrowed from the courtiers of the stage, extended a fair-skinned talon, and while he gripped my hand in it he bent his body forward three times at the hips, as the stage courtier does, and said in the airiest and most condescending and patronizing way—­I quite remember his exact language: 

“Very glad to make your acquaintance, ’m sure; very glad indeed, assure you.  I’ve read all your little efforts and greatly admired them, and when I heard you were here, I ...”

I indicated a chair, and he sat down.  This grandee was the grandson of an American of considerable note in his day, and not wholly forgotten yet—­a man who came so near being a great man that he was quite generally accounted one while he lived.