I expected Jone to say something in behalf of his country's ships, but
he didn't seem to pay much attention to the boat story, so I took up
the cudgels myself, and I said to the gentleman that all nations, no
matter how good they might be at ship-building, sometimes made
mistakes, and then to make a good impression on him I whanged him over
the head with the "Great Eastern," and asked him if there ever was a
vessel that was a greater failure than that.
He said, "Yes, yes, the 'Great Eastern' was not a success," and then he
stopped talking about ships.
When we got fairly into the Clyde and near Glasgow the scene was
wonderful. It was nearly night, and the great fires of the factories
lit up the sky, and we saw on the stocks a great ship being built.
We stayed in Glasgow one day, and Jone was delighted with it, because
he said it was like an American city. Now, on principle, I like
American cities, but I didn't come to Scotland to see them; and the
greatest pleasure I had in Glasgow was standing with a tumbler of water
in my hand, repeating to myself as much of the "Lady of the Lake" as I
could remember.
Letter Number Twenty-five
LONDON
Here we are in this wonderful town, where, if you can't see everything
you want to see, you can generally see a sample of it, even if your fad
happens to be the ancientnesses of Egypt. We are at the Babylon Hotel,
where we shall stay until it is time to start for Southampton, where we
shall take the steamer for home. What we are going to do between here
and Southampton I don't know yet; but I do know that Jone is all on
fire with joy because he thinks his journeys are nearly over, and I am
chilled with grief when I think that my journeys are nearly over.
We left Edinburgh on the train called the "Flying Scotsman," and it
deserved its name. I suppose that in the days of Wallace and Bruce and
Rob Roy the Scots must often have skipped along in a lively way; but I
am sure if any of them had ever invaded England at the rate we went
into it, the British lion would soon have been living on thistles
instead of roses.
The speed of this train was sometimes a mile a minute, I think; and I
am sure I was never on any railroad in America where I was given a
shorter time to get out for something to eat than we had at York.
