Playing Courier by Mark Twain. Short summary

5 seconds

The narrator decided not to hire an agent, but to serve the tourists himself. He ended up not organizing anything, forgetting everything, losing his chequers, not taking money from the bank, and even managing to go to jail.

1 minute

The narrator was supposed to take tourists from Geneva to Byreuth. He didn’t want to hire a travel agent and decided to do everything himself.

The author went on foot to the train station and got lost. There he was asked which route he was going to take. He decided to tackle the map and return to the hotel by cab. When he arrived, he remembered that he was running out of cigars and decided to stop for some. On the way he stopped at the post office to send an important telegram to Holland, but he forgot the address.

At the post office he forgot the bank letter of credit and could not get any money from the bank While negotiating for the tourists’ suitcases, he mixed everything up and the whole luggage went to Zurich, instead of half At the post office he aroused suspicion and was taken to the police. The tourists, who had been sitting in the hotel until the evening, gave him a scandal.

The next day the author tried to almost miss the train. But he couldn’t get on it, because the tickets he bought at the tobacco shop turned out to be lottery tickets.

The author ended up hiring a real agent, and he solved all the problems.