night and at first there were a good many people abroad, and there were

cheerful lights about. Later, I grew accustomed to prowling about

mysterious drifts and tunnels and astonishing and interesting myself with

coming around corners expecting to find the hotel staring me in the face,

and not finding it doing any thing of the kind. Later still, I felt

tired. I soon felt remarkably tired. But there was no one abroad, now

-not even a policeman. I walked till I was out of all patience, and very

hot and thirsty. At last, somewhere after one o'clock, I came

unexpectedly to one of the city gates. I knew then that I was very far

from the hotel. The soldiers thought I wanted to leave the city, and

they sprang up and barred the way with their muskets. I said:

Hotel d'Europe!"

It was all the Italian I knew, and I was not certain whether that was

Italian or French. The soldiers looked stupidly at each other and at me,

and shook their heads and took me into custody. I said I wanted to go

home. They did not understand me. They took me into the guard-house

and

searched me, but they found no sedition on me. They found a small piece

of soap (we carry soap with us, now,) and I made them a present of it,

seeing that they regarded it as a curiosity. I continued to say Hotel

d'Europe, and they continued to shake their heads, until at last a young

soldier nodding in the corner roused up and said something. He said he

knew where the hotel was, I suppose, for the officer of the guard sent

him away with me. We walked a hundred or a hundred and fifty miles, it

278

The Innocents Abroad