The same strenuous method of preparatory training for the Titlis climb took me up to Mount Pilatus on the next day. But I was not allowed to return on the same day on account of a fierce thunder-storm raging in the valley below, which I watched from the top of the Pilatus. The innkeeper congratulated me upon my rare luck, not only because I had a chance to see the beautiful sight of a thunder-storm as viewed from a point above the thundering clouds, but principally because this thunder-storm prevented me from running the serious risk of descending and rowing back to Lucerne on the same day. Commenting upon the overconfidence of youth, the innkeeper said that every person has a guardian angel, but people intoxicated by wine or by exuberance of youth have two, one on each side. That was his explanation for the alleged fact, he said, that young people and intoxicated people seldom meet with serious accidents in mountain climbing. Some Americans, he thought, should have several guardian angels. This sarcasm was aimed at me, and it did not miss its mark. Nevertheless, when on my fifth day in Lucerne I started out very early for the Titlis, I adopted the same strenuous method: rowing to Stansstadt, walking to Engelberg, and climbing to the hospice where I arrived at 11 P. M. I reached at sunrise of the following morning the top of Titlis, and saw the glories of Uri, Schwyz, and Unterwalden as my English friend had promised. But I reached it much exhausted, and if it had not been for the skilled assistance of my trusty Swiss guide, the last four lines of Longfellow’s “Excelsior” would have described my Titlis climb quite accurately. I quote the lines: “There in the twilight cold and gray, Lifeless, but beautiful, he lay, And from the sky, serene and far, A voice fell, like a falling star, Excelsior!”