How much more real Algiers was than the rock on the Rigi where we sat,
or the lake beneath, or the mountains beyond. Algiers is very real,
though I have never seen it, and my friend is my friend for ever, though
I have lost his card and forgotten his name. He was a Government clerk
from Lyons, making this his first foreign tour before he began his
military service. He showed me his 'circular excursion ticket'. Then at
last we parted, for he must get to the top of the Rigi, and I must get
to the bottom.
Lucerne and its lake were as irritating as ever--like the wrapper round
milk chocolate. I could not sleep even one night there: I took the
steamer down the lake, to the very last station. There I found a good
German inn, and was happy.
There was a tall thin young man, whose face was red and inflamed from
the sun. I thought he was a German tourist. He had just come in; and he
was eating bread and milk. He and I were alone in the eating-room. He
was looking at an illustrated paper.
'Does the steamer stop here all night?' I asked him in German, hearing
the boat bustling and blowing her steam on the water outside, and
glancing round at her lights, red and white, in the pitch darkness.
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