Albuquerque citizen., 1908-05-29
DAILY. SHORT STORIES
THE GRAND TOUR.

Il may have missed a whole flock
of the big cathedrals and / spent pre-
cious little time looking at ruins. ana
l wasn't in but one art gallery" the
returned European traveller was tell
ing his friends at the club, and yet
my three months tour OF the conti-
nent wasn't In vain By d long shot. l
was fully paid for the expense Just
by one afternoon that
That you spent IN that dear Paree,
hey?" interrupted the man across the
room, putting away at the trolley pole
in his mouth.
Nav, naw," resumed the returned
tourist, what | was going to say was
that / got my moneys worth one att
ernoon on the'boat returning.
Now, any of you who have ever
been abroad have encountered the
And did you see that?' bore, haven't
you? That is, the man on the boat
who keeps springing places on you
that you didn take in and who goes
50 out of his way to make you under
stand what fizzle ou must have
made of your trip. He's the same
man you know, VINO can tell you the
and the cost of the principal pieces
of sculpture in the art galleries.
You've met up with him, haven't
you?"
Three or four of the crowd clenched
their fists and nodded recollection OF
the points of interest bore.
Il guess you never fail. to meet at
least five or six of them on your way
home" went on the returned traveller
They certainly were thick on our
boat.
We'll, the bunch of them kept
pretty busy with me, asking me about
the mausoleums and things l hadn't
seen. 1t got to a point where l had
to take decisive action or else give
the deep sea fishes a chance to work
me up into a dessert course.
"One afternoon l retired to a quiet
corner and ransacked my Baedecker
and pocket aliases until l found the
name of a nice little unheard-of town
that was in the book only because
there would have been a big blank
space on the map at that point. The
town | picked must have had Just
about 2S6 men, women children III
arms and travelling men. I've forgot
ten the name of it now, but it was
some place in Germany, and no one
but the man who got up the guluc
book knew 1t was there. After
found out about it ] began to dream
up good line of dope about that
town. / faxed up a bunch of generals
from the decisive battles of the old
world who did things there-and a
lot more hashesshy stuff about the
freak art galleries. the quaint birth
places of diseased and deceased he
roes, the queer stunts the natives do
there and a lot of that sort of talk.
| Then | went out to lie in wait for the
oores. / hadn't waited long when one
| of them started up on his familiar
and did you see this symphony.
Then | turned loose my line Of
dope about that town of 2S6 souls
When they said they'd never even
| heard of it | handed them some pret-
/ ty straight talk about the people who
! go to Europe and visit all the com
monplace points that everybody sees
| but don't make any effort to ascer-
I tain what places are really worth
while to people of erudition and dis
cernment | made it as plain as
! could that my own tastes were toe
esoteric to be satisfied with the usua
points of interest that every ole
! Cooks tourist gets to see. | painted
a great picture of the things to b'
seen in that town of mine. All thu
bores put it down in their notebook!
and said they would at least see tina
they didn't miss it the next time the!
cam" over, and also that they woul'
| put their friends wise.
After that things were falrl!
| peaccable"