You will have to go back and
live on the train, which is, indeed, a frightful fate to contemplate.
Fifth - Reach the station half an hour before the train starts and
claim your seat; then tip the guard liberally to keep other
passengers out of your compartment. He has no intention of doing
so, but it is customary for Americans to go through this pleasing
formality - and it is expected of them.
Sixth - Tip everybody on the train who wears a uniform. Be not
afraid of hurting some one's feelings by offering a tip to the
wrong person. There will not be any wrong person. A tip is the
one form of insult that anybody in Europe will take.
Seventh - Before entering the train inhale deeply several times.
This will be your last chance of getting any fresh air until you
reach your destination. For self-defense against the germ life
prevailing in the atmosphere of the unventilated compartments,
smoke a German cigar. A German cigar keeps off any disease except
the cholera; it gives you the cholera.
Eighth - Do not linger on the platform, waiting for the locomotive
whistle to blow, or the bell to ring, or somebody to yell "All
aboard!" If you do this you will probably keep on lingering until
the following morning at seven. As a starting signal the presiding
functionary renders a brief solo on a tiny tin trumpet. One puny
warning blast from this instrument sets the whole train in motion.
It makes you think of Gabriel bringing on the Day of Judgment by
tootling on a penny whistle. Another interesting point: The engine
does not say Choo-choo as in our country - it says Tut-tut.
Ninth - In England, for convenience in claiming your baggage, change
your name to Xenophon or Zymology - there are always about the
baggage such crowds of persons who have the commoner initials,
such as T for Thompson, J for Jones, and S for Smith. When next
I go to England my name will be Zoroaster - Quintus P. Zoroaster.
Tenth - If possible avoid patronizing the so-called refreshment
wagons or dining cars, which are expensive and uniformly bad.
Live off the country. Remember, the country is living off you.
Chapter VI
La Belle France Being the First Stop
Except eighty or ninety other things the British Channel was the
most disappointing thing we encountered in our travels. All my
reading on this subject had led me to expect that the Channel would
be very choppy and that we should all be very seasick. Nothing
of the sort befell. The channel may have been suetty but it was
not choppy. The steamer that ferried us over ran as steadily as
a clock and everybody felt as fine as a fiddle.
A friend of mine whom I met six weeks later in Florence had better
luck. He crossed on an occasion when a test was being made of a
device for preventing seasickness. A Frenchman was the inventor
and also the experimenter. This Frenchman had spent valuable years
of his life perfecting his invention. It resembled a hammock swung
between uprights. The supports were to be bolted to the deck of
the ship, and when the Channel began to misbehave the squeamish
passenger would climb into the hammock and fasten himself in; and
then, by a system of reciprocating oscillations, the hammock would
counteract the motion of the ship and the occupant would rest in
perfect comfort no matter how high she pitched or how deep she
rolled. At least such was the theory of the inventor; and to prove
it he offered himself as the subject for the first actual demonstration.
The result was unexpected. The sea was only moderately rough; but
that patent hammock bucked like a kicking bronco. The poor Frenchman
was the only seasick person aboard - but he was sick enough for the
whole crowd. He was seasick with a Gallic abandon; he was seasick
both ways from the jack, and other ways too. He was strapped down
so he could not get out, which added no little to the pleasure of
the occasion for everybody except himself. When the steamer landed
the captain of the boat told the distressed owner that, in his
opinion, the device was not suited for steamer use. He advised
him to rent it to a riding academy.
In crossing from Dover to Calais we had thought we should be going
merely from one country to another; we found we had gone from one
world to another. That narrow strip of uneasy water does not
separate two countries - it separates two planets.
Gone were the incredible stiffness and the incurable honesty of
the race that belonged over yonder on those white chalk cliffs
dimly visible along the horizon. Gone were the phlegm and stolidity
of those people who manifest emotion only on the occasions when
they stand up to sing their national anthem:
God save the King!
The Queen is doing well!
Gone were the green fields of Sussex, which looked as though they
had been taken in every night and brushed and dry-cleaned and then
put down again in the morning. Gone were the trees that Maxfield
Parrish might have painted, so vivid were they in their burnished
green-and-yellow coloring, so spectacular in their grouping.
Gone was the five-franc note which I had intrusted to a sandwich
vender on the railroad platform in the vain hope that he would
come back with the change. After that clincher there was no doubt
about it - we were in La Belle France all right, all right!
Everything testified to the change. From the pier where we landed,
a small boy, in a long black tunic belted in at his waist, was
fishing; he hooked a little fingerling.
