Page:Abroad with Mark Twain and Eugene Field.djvu/187

 MARK TWAIN EXPLAINS DEAN SWIFT

"I wish somebody would kick me for a damned Treppenwitz," said Mark Twain, gazing into a bookseller's shop window Unter den Linden.

"The Herr Schutzmann (traffic policeman) will oblige; just say—"

Mark glanced at the whiskered giant bestriding his ill-shaped cattle at the intersection of Friedrich Strasse.

"No, thank you, I won't lese majeste on a Friday," replied Mark, "besides, I don't like the cop's boot." (In before-1918 days, you need but say, 'Verdammt Kaiser,' in Berlin, to get knocked down, arrested, and sent up for months and months.)

"What's Treppenwitz?"

"I didn't know myself until Harry Thurston Peck told me. It's the wisdom that comes to you going down the stairs, or the elevator, after making a fool of yourself higher up—an afterthought, as it were."

"And what's the afterthought now?"

"See that book?" (pointing), "no, not that, the yellowback, by Prof. Borkowsky—one more guy trying to explain Jonathan Swift. I forgot when his Deanship lived and died, but they must have been at it for centuries. And without examining the new volume, I bet I can tell its contents: more highfalutin' tommyrot about the Dean's vagaries in erotics and 183