"What does any conductor mean when he calls out the name of a station?" said Swayny scornfully. "He means that's where you are at of course. Which is what I mean. We've arrived at Europe. That's the kind of a fast mail sled we are. In three minutes we've carried you up hill and down dale, over the sea to Europe." "Really?" cried Jimmieboy, dumfounded. "Certainly," said Swanny. "You are now in Europe. That blue place you see over on the right is Germany, off to the left is France and that little pink speck is Switzerland. See that glistening thing just on the edge of the pink speck?" "Yes," said Jimmieboy. "That's an Alp," said Swanny. "It's too bad we've got to get you home in time for breakfast. If we weren't in such a hurry, we'd let you off so that you could buy an Alp to take home to your brother. You could have snow-balls all through the summer if you had an Alp in your nursery, but we can't stop now to get it. We've got to runaway immediately. Ready Swayny?" "Yes," said Swayny. "ALL ABOARD FOR ENGLAND. Passengers will please keep their seats until the sled comes to a standstill in the station." And then they were off again. "How did you like Europe?" asked Swanny, as they sped along through a beautiful country, which Swayny said was France. "Very nice what I saw of it," said Jimmieboy. "But, of course I couldn't see very much in five minutes." "Hoh! Hear that, Swayny?" said Swanny. "Couldn't see much in five minutes. Why you could see all Europe in five minutes, if you only looked fast enough. You kept your eye glued on that Alp, I guess." "That's what he did," said Swayny. "And that's why it was so hard to get the sled started. I had to hump three times before I could get my runner off and it was all because he'd glued his eye on the Alp! Don't do it again, Jimmieboy. We haven't time to unglue your eye every time we start." "I don't blame him," said Swanny. "Those Alps are simply great, and I sometimes feel myself as if I'd like to look at 'em as much as forty minutes. I'd hate to be a hired man on an Alp, though." "So would I," said Swayny. "It would be awful if the owner of the Alp made the hired man shovel the snow off it every morning." "I wasn't thinking of that so much as I was of getting up every morning, early, to push the clouds away," said Swanny. "People are very careless about their clouds on the Alps, and they wander here and there, straying from one man's lawn onto another's, just like cows where Jimmieboy lives. I knew a man once who bought the top of an Alp just for the view, and one of his neighbor's clouds came along and squatted down on his place and simply killed the view entirely, and I tell you he made his hired man's life miserable. Scolded him from morning until night, and fed him on cracked ice for a week, just because he didn't scare the cloud off when he saw it coming." "I don't see how a man could scare a cloud off," said Jimmieboy.