At three o'clock in the morning we got away, the guide carrying ropes, ax and lunch. At five or thereabouts we reached the pass. Thus far everything was delightful--landscape, atmosphere, temperament and intentions. The view that morning from the Theodule Pass, over the glacier below, was the most wonderful I have ever enjoyed. The clouds were tossing about over the glacier like stormy waves at sea, and the morning sun threw over the scene a most beautiful medley of colors. At our right was the Matterhorn, but that represented three hundred francs, and inspired covetousness. Pretty soon we were off again, and when we struck the snow my delight was climaxed. We were roped together! Never before or since in my life have I felt the sense of personal responsibility in such an exalted degree. I thought of the historian, and what I should do if he tumbled into a crevice. I even pictured myself hauling the stalwart guide out of a hole. These thrilling notions of possible valor did not last long, however. In an hour my light summer shoes were wet through, my face had begun to burn, my hands had got cold, and the top of the world looked all awry. "Get your money's worth," the historian encouraged me, and I plodded on to the top. There we stood, and were supposed to enjoy life. My feet ached, and I said "d----." An Englishman, brother of a well-known novelist, whom I took to be a clergyman, said, "Tut, tut!" I repeated my expression, and he and his party crossed over to the Little Breithorn, to be alone. I said a number of other things before the day was over, but we managed to get back to Zermatt without interference. As we paid the guide off before going into the village, I asked him whether he would not like to have us write a recommendation for him in his book. He smiled. "Oh, I can go up that hill backwards," he said, "but I am much obliged." This is the way he left us: bankrupt practically, wet, tired, and with the humiliating inference that had we been real sportsmen we could have climbed the "Breithorn" heels foremost. I have never read "A Tramp Abroad" since that experience. Of our impoverished condition on reaching Breig there is little to say except that it was whole-hearted and genuine. We could hardly have had over two francs between us. The hotel man insisted that we were honest, however, and would pay him when we could. So for ten days we settled down upon him to wonder why we had ever attempted the "Breithorn." There was a stone wall, or abutment, near the town, about sixty feet high. Climbing it was like going up a New England stone fence to the same height--there was not a particle of difference. If one lost his footing, there was nothing to do but fall to the bottom and think things over. A fall from near the top, which nearly happened to me, could only have stopped all things, because there was nothing but bowlders to light on.