This person, when traveling, always takes
his wife and much baggage with him. Or, rather, he takes his wife
and she takes the baggage which, by Continental standards, is
regarded as an equal division of burdens.
However, for variety and individual peculiarity, our own land
offers the largest assortment in the tourist line, this perhaps
being due to the fact that Americans do more traveling than any
other race. I think that in our ramblings we must have encountered
pretty nearly all the known species of tourists, ranging from sane
and sensible persons who had come to Europe to see and to learn
and to study, clear on down through various ramifications to those
who had left their homes and firesides to be uncomfortable and
unhappy in far lands merely because somebody told them they ought
to travel abroad. They were in Europe for the reason that so
many people run to a fire: not because they care particularly for
a fire but because so many others are running to it. I would that
I had the time, and you, kind reader, the patience so that I might
enumerate and describe in full detail all the varieties and
sub-varieties of our race that we saw--the pert, overfed, overpampered
children, the aggressive, self-sufficient, prematurely bored young
girls, the money-fattened, boastful vulgarians, scattering coin
by the handful, intent only on making a show and not realizing
that they themselves were the show; the coltish, pimply youths who
thought in order to be high-spirited they must also be impolite
and noisy.
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