The Argosy — page 316: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

“ Glittering Gold.” 295 There was no gainsaying that reply; so most reluctantly and slowly Mr. Etheridge packed his portmanteau, paid a gloomy farewell visit to the office, provided himself with a due supply of circular notes, and left Charing Cross one evening en route for Switzerland, a banished, désceuvré, melancholy man. At first he was far too little interested in his travels to plan any original route, but simply followed the course of his circular ticket, doing the “‘ regular Swiss round” in mechanical fashion, meeting the same people time after time, passing from one huge overgrown hotel to another which seemed its twin brother, wearily but conscientiously seeing all that his Baedeker told him he ought to see, and mixing up all he saw into glorious confusion in his tired brain. He visited Berne, and only marvelled how grown-up people could find amusement in patiently watching the little old clock ; at Geneva he felt half-blinded by the hard glare of the blazing white quays ; Lausanne only made him wonder at the number of its telephone wires ; and at Fribourg he vainly tried to take some little interest in its big organ and slender bridges. And still, like Gallio, he ‘‘cared for none of these things.” But presently, with returning health and vigour, there gradually awoke in him an unwonted desire to know something more of that “Nature” which he had hitherto considered just a craze of women and painters; and before long, to his own intense astonishment, Robert Etheridge found himself revelling in long solitary excursions among the great white mountains, which till then had uttered in vain their mighty voice of invitation. “T’appétit vient en mangeant” is true indeed of the fare which the snow-giants set before their guests; and by-and-bye only the necessity for husbanding his returning strength prevented the sober, business man from attempting ascents not beneath the notice of the Alpine Club. But all severe exertion having been strictly forbidden by Sir Henry, Mr. Etheridge had perforce to content himself with less exhausting excursions. In spite, however, of this newly-awakened faculty for enjoyment, Robert Etheridge remained an eminently unsociable ‘“ voyageur,” never making any of those pleasant, passing, table-d’héte acquaint- ances which to many people give one of its chief zests to foreign travel. Alone he came, and alone he went, drinking in new health for body and mind with each breath of the pure mountain breezes, but remaining as solitary in his delight abroad as he had always been in his labour at home. “Mein Herr! Herr Englander! Can I with you one moment speak ?” Mr. Etheridge turned sharply round. It was the busy, courteous host of the Bar at Wilderswyl who called to him. “Certainly. What is it?” GomiilGaooks (S©) am