It is a most amusing thing to see a woman with this absurd gown, actually glorying in looking hideous, with her ghastly blue spectacles, Alpenstock in hand, ride up to a hotel on a mule, and march boldly into the grand hall, after one of these fraudulent excursions. She speaks of the topmost peaks as though she had been there; she talks of chasms in the glaciers, of the risks she ran because the ropes were not exactly right; she abuses her guide, and says he was the worst she ever had, as though she had been climbing Alps from the time she left off short dresses; and when her little stock is run out, she goes to her room, and reads up her guide-books and such local printed matter as is attainable, and commences again. She buys Alpine flowers at the market in the village, and sends them home as gathered on the mountains; she has all sorts of carved work which she swears she purchased from the Alpine dwellers who make it (there are factories of these "souvenirs" all over Switzerland); and she loads herself with all sorts of rubbish, all of which her people at home will preserve and cherish as carefully as though the lies she told about it were truths. There are enthusiasts who make it the business of their lives to explore the Alps, and as they alone take the risk, they do no harm if they do no good. But the average amateur climber is about as absurd a being as is permitted to exist, and inasmuch as there are thousands of them, one may imagine what an offense they are. You meet all sorts of queer people in Europe, and as many in Switzerland as anywhere, unless it be Paris, which is a common sink for all the world. I met in Geneva a very curious specimen, whose career is worth a place in history. He was the son of one of the most wealthy men of New York. His father had made some millions of dollars in trade and judicious real-estate investments, and brought up his family as all rich New Yorkers do. The young man had gone through college, and had graduated by the skin of his teeth. He had learned much of boating and base ball, and was one of the best billiard players in his set. Out of college with a lot of knowledge that he could make no use of, for he had nothing to do in life, he became a club man in New York, and commenced the pursuit of pleasure. It was all well enough for a time. Yachting occupied him for two seasons, horses took his attention for two more. He once, in desperation, made a trip in a wagon from New York to Montreal, just to put in a Summer, with three companions, he footing all the bills. Horses palling on his taste, he entered upon a life of general and miscellaneous dissipation, and finally that tired him and he was without an aim in life. He had hunted pleasure and now pleasure was hunting him. In despair he took to travel, and for five years he rambled from one capital to another, seeing everything and being bored by everything. [Sidenote: FEELING AN INTEREST IN SOMETHING.]