Abroad with the Jimmies eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 197 pages of information about Abroad with the Jimmies.

Abroad with the Jimmies eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 197 pages of information about Abroad with the Jimmies.

I found my King Arthur perfectly satisfactory, much to my surprise, for I am always prepared to be disappointed.  Some of the statues are ridiculous in the extreme, but these monstrosities served the better to emphasise the dignity of King Arthur’s pose and the nobility of his countenance.

Just after you leave the Hofkirche, you find yourself just opposite to the “Golden Dachl,” which the natives tell you is a roof built of pure gold, but which the skeptical declare to be copper gilded.  This roof covers a handsome Gothic balcony and blazes as splendidly as if it were gold, as Bee and Mrs. Jimmie preferred to believe.  It is said to have cost seventy thousand dollars, and was built by Count Frederick of Tyrol, who was called “The Count of the Empty Pockets,” to refute his nickname.

While we were taking infinite satisfaction in this little history, we lost Jimmie.  He emerged presently from a handsome shop near by followed by a man bearing a large box.

“What have you been buying, Jimmie?” we demanded, suspiciously.

“Only a replica of Maximilian’s statue,” he answered, blandly.

“You mean a ‘copy,’ my darling,” I corrected him, sweetly.

Now Jimmie loves a fight and so do I, so we immediately offered battle to each other, Jimmie insisting on his replica, and I declaring that a replica meant that the same artist must have made both the original and the second article, which when made by another craftsman became a “copy.”

Jimmie got red in the face and abusive, while I remained cool and exasperating.  I was getting even with Jimmie for everything since Paris.

But conceive, if you can, my utter humiliation when, upon arriving at the hotel, I discovered that the box contained, not Maximilian, but my dear King Arthur, and that Jimmie had bought it for me!

I really cried.

“Jimmie,” I said in a meek and lowly voice, “you are an angel—­a bright, beautiful, golden angel, and from now on, I’ll call this a replica,—­when I’m talking to a wayfaring man.  And I’ll never, never fight with you again!”

“Then gimme back that bronze man!” declared Jimmie.  “If you give up the battlefield I’ll start home to-morrow!” Which shows you where I got encouragement to be “ungentlemanly,” as Jimmie calls me.

Innsbruck is the capital of Tyrol, and the whole country of Tyrol is like a picture-book.  Its history is so stirring, its country so beautiful, its people are so picturesque.  There are any number of dainty little lakes lying in among its mountains, which are accessible to the tourist, and therefore semi-public, by which I mean not as public as the Swiss or Italian lakes.  But up the Inn River a few miles, and completely hidden from the tourist, being out of the way and little known to Americans, there lies the most lovely lake of all, the Achensee, and all around it the Tyrolese peasants, as they ought to be allowed to remain, simple,

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Abroad with the Jimmies from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.