Once there was a provincial Tradesman who gave his Yokemate a Christmas Present. It was a kind of Dingus formerly exhibited on the What-Not in almost every polite Home.
By peering through at the twin Photographs and working it like a Slide
Trombone, one could get ravishing glimpses of Trafalgar Square, Lake
Como, and the Birthplace of Bobby Burns.
Nearly every evening the Tradesman would back up to the Student Lamp and put in a delirious half-hour with the Views.
While gazing up the Rue de Rivoli or across the rice paddies at the snowy cap of Fuji, his Blood would become het by the old boyhood Desire to sail across the Blue to Foreign Parts.
Those who saw him mowing the Lawn little suspected that he was being inwardly eaten by the Wanderlust.
The Tradesman, Edwin by name, and his Managing Director, Selena, formed the magic-lantern Habit away back in the days of Stoddard. They never missed a chance to take in Burton Holmes. Sitting in the darkness, they would hold hands and simply eat those Colored Slides.
Selena belonged to a Club that was trying to get a side-hold on the Art and Architecture of the Old World. She had a smouldering Ambition to ride a Camel in the Orient and then come home and put it all over a certain proud Hen who had spent six weeks in Europe.
One visit to Niagara Falls and a glorious week of Saengerfest at Cincinnati had simply whetted her desire to take Edwin by the hand and beat it all the way around the Globe, via Singapore. To prepare herself for the Grand Tour, she took 12 lessons in French and read up on the Taj Mahal.
She had to wait patiently until Edwin was threatened with a Nervous Break-Down. At last the Happy Day arrived when the Specialist told him he must make his choice between a long Sea Voyage and a slow ride to the Family Lot.
Selena used Hydraulic Pressure in packing her Wardrobe Trunks. She took all her circus Duds and a slew of Hats so that she could make the proper Front, while being entertained Abroad.
Edwin had secured a Passport which identified him as a male white Person, entitled to all the Courtesies and Privileges usually extended to an American Citizen holding a Passport.
They were on the verge of the Jumps when they boarded the Train, but they hoped to Relax and get a lot of Sleep on the Ocean Greyhound.
A few days later they were curled up in a Cabin de Luxe about the size of a Telephone Booth, waiting for the Ocean Greyhound to recover from an attack of Hydrophobia.
When they tottered down the Gang-Plank, after six days on the playful
North Atlantic, their only Comfort was derived from the knowledge that,
as soon as they had rested up, they could write home and quote the
Second Officer as saying it was the roughest Passage he had ever Known.
After spending a few days in London trying to get warm, they moved on to Paris, which they remembered long afterward on account of Napoleon's Tomb and the price of Strawberries.
Selena pulled her tall-grass French on a Hackman, but there was nothing doing. He had taken it from a different Teacher.
So they employed a Guide who knew all the Shops. If Selena happened to admire a Trinket or some outre Confection with Lace slathered on it, a perfumed Apache in a Frock Coat would take Edwin into a side room, give him the sleeve across the Wind-Pipe, and bite a piece out of his Letter of Credit.
Edwin did a little quick work with the Pencil and said they could either hurry on or else hie back to the Home Town and begin Life all over again.
Three weeks after saying good-bye to Griddle Cakes they were in Naples, which they had seen pictured on so many Calendars.
Looking back across the Centuries they recalled the Clerks standing in the Doorways and the friends of the Progressive Euchre Club. It was sweet to remember that the world was not made up entirely of cadging Head Waiters.
Once in a while they would venture from the Hotel to run footraces with the yelping Lazzaroni or try to look at Vesuve without paying seven or eight members of the Camorra for the Privilege.
After being chased back into the Hotel, they would sit down and address
Post-Cards by the Hour, telling how much they were enjoying the stay in
Napoli, home of Song and Laughter.
Their only chance of catching even on the Imperial Suite at $9 a Day was to make the Folks back at the Whistling Post think they were playing Guitars and dancing the Tarantella, whatever that is.
Next we see them in Egypt, still addressing Post-Cards, and offering anything within Reason for a good Cup of Coffee.
Somehow, sitting in the dusky Tombs didn't seem to help their Nostalgia. Not that they would own up to being Home-Sick. No, indeed! They kept writing back that they enjoyed every Minute spent among the Cemeteries and Ruins, or sailing up the Nile, and Edwin was holding up wonderfully, for an Invalid.
Only, when either of them spoke of the Children, or Corned-Beef Hash, or the Canary, a long Silence would ensue, and then the Nervous Wreck would cheer her by computing that they would be in God's Country within four months, if they escaped Shipwreck, Sunstroke, and Bubonic Plague.
While parboiling themselves down the Red Sea it began to soak in on them that, east of Suez, the Yank has about as much standing as the Ten Commandments.
They could have endured sleeping in a Trough and bathing with a damp
Towel and eating Food kept over from the year before, if their Fellow
Voyagers had made a slight fuss over them or evinced some interest in
the wonders of North America.
The Congressman at home had assured them, on numerous occasions, that Columbia was the Jim of the Ocean and the most upholstered portion of the entire Foot-Stool.
Consequently, it was somewhat disconcerting to meet British subjects who never had heard of Quincy, Illinois, and who moved their Deck Chairs every time they were given a chance to hear about it.
Back in the Middle West, Edwin and Selena had been Mountains arising from the Plain. At all points beyond Greenwich, they were simply two unconsidered fragments of Foreign Substance.
The Passport did not seem to get them anything. While being walked upon by t............