The Innocents Abroad


google search for The Innocents Abroad

Return to Master Book Index.

Page
79 80 81 82 83

Quick Jump
1 187 374 560 747

The other personage I have mentioned is young and green, and not bright,  
not learned, and not wise. He will be, though, someday if he recollects  
the answers to all his questions. He is known about the ship as the  
"
Interrogation Point," and this by constant use has become shortened to  
Interrogation." He has distinguished himself twice already. In Fayal  
"
they pointed out a hill and told him it was 800 feet high and 1,100 feet  
long. And they told him there was a tunnel 2,000 feet long and 1,000  
feet high running through the hill, from end to end. He believed it. He  
repeated it to everybody, discussed it, and read it from his notes.  
Finally, he took a useful hint from this remark, which a thoughtful old  
pilgrim made:  
"
Well, yes, it is a little remarkable--singular tunnel altogether--stands  
up out of the top of the hill about two hundred feet, and one end of it  
sticks out of the hill about nine hundred!"  
Here in Gibraltar he corners these educated British officers and badgers  
them with braggadocio about America and the wonders she can perform! He  
told one of them a couple of our gunboats could come here and knock  
Gibraltar into the Mediterranean Sea!  
At this present moment half a dozen of us are taking a private pleasure  
excursion of our own devising. We form rather more than half the list of  
white passengers on board a small steamer bound for the venerable Moorish  
town of Tangier, Africa. Nothing could be more absolutely certain than  
8
1


Page
79 80 81 82 83

Quick Jump
1 187 374 560 747