Nurnberg at the time was not so much exploited as it has been since
then. Irving had not been playing _Faust_, and the very name of the old
town was hardly known to the great bulk of the travelling public. My
wife and I being in the second week of our honeymoon, naturally wanted
someone else to join our party, so that when the cheery stranger, Elias
P. Hutcheson, hailing from Isthmian City, Bleeding Gulch, Maple Tree
County, Neb. turned up at the station at Frankfort, and casually
remarked that he was going on to see the most all-fired old Methuselah
of a town in Yurrup, and that he guessed that so much travelling alone
was enough to send an intelligent, active citizen into the melancholy
ward of a daft house, we took the pretty broad hint and suggested that
we should join forces. We found, on comparing notes afterwards, that we
had each intended to speak with some diffidence or hesitation so as not
to appear too eager, such not being a good compliment to the success of
our married life; but the effect was entirely marred by our both
beginning to speak at the same instant—stopping simultaneously and then
going on together again. Anyhow, no matter how, it was done; and Elias
P. Hutcheson became one of our party. Straightway Amelia and I found
the pleasant benefit; instead of quarrelling, as we had been doing, we
found that the restraining influence of a third party was such that we
now took every opportunity of spooning in odd corners. Amelia declares
that ever since she has, as the result of that experience, advised all
her friends to take a friend on the honeymoon. Well, we “did” Nurnberg
together, and much enjoyed the racy remarks of our Transatlantic
friend, who, from his quaint speech and his wonderful stock of
adventures, might have stepped out of a novel. We kept for the last
object of interest in the city to be visited the Burg, and on the day
appointed for the visit strolled round the outer wall of the city by
the eastern side.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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