It always is - always is. That's what they say.
Everybody says that. What ship did you come over in?"
"VILLE DE PARIS."
"French, I reckon. What kind of a passage did ... excuse me
a minute, there's some Americans I haven't seen before."
And away he went. He went uninjured, too - I had the murderous
impulse to harpoon him in the back with my alpenstock,
but as I raised the weapon the disposition left me;
I found I hadn't the heart to kill him, he was such
a joyous, innocent, good-natured numbskull.
Half an hour later I was sitting on a bench inspecting,
with strong interest, a noble monolith which we were
skimming by - a monolith not shaped by man, but by Nature's
free great hand - a massy pyramidal rock eighty feet high,
devised by Nature ten million years ago against the day
when a man worthy of it should need it for his monument.
The time came at last, and now this grand remembrancer
bears Schiller's name in huge letters upon its face.
Curiously enough, this rock was not degraded or defiled
in any way. It is said that two years ago a stranger let
himself down from the top of it with ropes and pulleys,
and painted all over it, in blue letters bigger than those in
Schiller's name, these words:
"Try Sozodont;" "Buy Sun Stove Polish;" "Helmbold's Buchu;"
"Try Benzaline for the Blood."
He was captured and it turned out that he was an American.
Upon his trial the judge said to him:
