" Englewood and South Chicago papers please
copy.
Chapter XIX
Venice and the Venisons
Getting back again to guides, I am reminded that our acquaintanceship
with the second member of the Mark Twain brotherhood was staged
in Paris. This gentleman wished himself on us one afternoon at
the Hotel des Invalides. We did not engage him; he engaged us,
doing the trick with such finesse and skill that before we realized
it we had been retained to accompany him to various points of
interest in and round Paris. However, we remained under his control
one day only. At nightfall we wrested ourselves free and fled
under cover of darkness to German soil, where we were comparatively
safe.
I never knew a man who advanced so rapidly in a military way as
he did during the course of that one day. Our own national guard
could not hold a candle to him. He started out at ten A.M. by
being an officer of volunteers in the Franco-Prussian War; but
every time he slipped away and took a nip out of his private
bottle, which was often, he advanced in rank automatically. Before
the dusk of evening came he was a corps commander, who had been
ennobled on the field of battle by the hand of Napoleon the Third.
He took us to Versailles. We did not particularly care to go to
Versailles that day, because it was raining; but he insisted and
we went.
Pages:
268
269
270
271
272
273
274
275
276
277
278
279
280
281
282
283
284
285
286
287
288
289
290
291
292