Down The Road A Piece Was A Kursaal - Whatever That May Be
- And We Joined The Human Tide To See What Sort Of Enjoyment
It Might Afford.
It was the usual open-air concert,
in an ornamental garden, with wines, beer, milk, whey,
grapes, etc.
- The whey and the grapes being necessaries
of life to certain invalids whom physicians cannot repair,
and who only continue to exist by the grace of whey
or grapes. One of these departed spirits told me,
in a sad and lifeless way, that there is no way for him
to live but by whey, and dearly, dearly loved whey,
he didn't know whey he did, but he did. After making
this pun he died - that is the whey it served him.
Some other remains, preserved from decomposition
by the grape system, told me that the grapes were of
a peculiar breed, highly medicinal in their nature,
and that they were counted out and administered by the
grape-doctors as methodically as if they were pills.
The new patient, if very feeble, began with one grape
before breakfast, took three during breakfast, a couple
between meals, five at luncheon, three in the afternoon,
seven at dinner, four for supper, and part of a grape
just before going to bed, by way of a general regulator.
The quantity was gradually and regularly increased,
according to the needs and capacities of the patient,
until by and by you would find him disposing of his one
grape per second all the day long, and his regular barrel
per day.
He said that men cured in this way, and enabled to discard
the grape system, never afterward got over the habit
of talking as if they were dictating to a slow amanuensis,
because they always made a pause between each two words
while they sucked the substance out of an imaginary grape.
He said these were tedious people to talk with.
He said that men who had been cured by the other process
were easily distinguished from the rest of mankind
because they always tilted their heads back, between every
two words, and swallowed a swig of imaginary whey.
He said it was an impressive thing to observe two men,
who had been cured by the two processes, engaged in
conversation - said their pauses and accompanying movements
were so continuous and regular that a stranger would think
himself in the presence of a couple of automatic machines.
One finds out a great many wonderful things, by traveling,
if he stumbles upon the right person.
I did not remain long at the Kursaal; the music was
good enough, but it seemed rather tame after the cyclone
of that Arkansaw expert. Besides, my adventurous spirit
had conceived a formidable enterprise - nothing less
than a trip from Interlaken, by the Gemmi and Visp,
clear to Zermatt, on foot! So it was necessary to plan
the details, and get ready for an early start. The courier
(this was not the one I have just been speaking of)
thought that the portier of the hotel would be able
to tell us how to find our way.
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