Yes, I had made the grand ascent; but it was a mistake
to do it in evening dress. The plug hats were battered,
the swallow-tails were fluttering rags, mud added no grace,
the general effect was unpleasant and even disreputable.

There were about seventy-five tourists at the hotel
--mainly ladies and little children--and they gave us
an admiring welcome which paid us for all our privations
and sufferings. The ascent had been made, and the names
and dates now stand recorded on a stone monument there
to prove it to all future tourists.

I boiled a thermometer and took an altitude, with a most
curious result: THE SUMMIT WAS NOT AS HIGH AS THE POINT ON
THE MOUNTAINSIDE WHERE I HAD TAKEN THE FIRST ALTITUDE.
Suspecting that I had made an important discovery,
I prepared to verify it. There happened to be a still
higher summit (called the Gorner Grat), above the hotel,
and notwithstanding the fact that it overlooks a glacier
from a dizzy height, and that the ascent is difficult
and dangerous, I resolved to venture up there and boil
a thermometer. So I sent a strong party, with some
borrowed hoes, in charge of two chiefs of service, to dig
a stairway in the soil all the way up, and this I ascended,
roped to the guides. This breezy height was the summit
proper--so I accomplished even more than I had originally
purposed to do. This foolhardy exploit is recorded on
another stone monument.