I Could Not Get Out Of
That Asylum Until I Had Surrendered The Covers Of Our Ticket Books
And Claimed Our Baggage And Put It Through The Customs Office.
I
knew that; the trouble was I could not find the place for attending
to these details.
On a chance I tried a door, but it was distinctly
the wrong place; and an elderly female on duty there got me out by
employing the universal language known of all peoples. She shook
her skirts at me and said Shoo! So I got out, still toting five or
six bags and bundles of assorted sizes and shapes, and tried all
the other doors in sight.
Finally, by a process of elimination and deduction, I arrived at
the right one. To make it harder for me they had put it around a
corner in an elbow-shaped wing of the building and had taken the
sign off the door. This place was full of porters and loud cries.
To be on the safe side I tendered retaining fees to three of the
porters; and thus by the time I had satisfied the customs officials
that I had no imported spirits or playing cards or tobacco or soap,
or other contraband goods, and had cleared our baggage and started
for the cabstand, we amounted to quite a stately procession and
attracted no little attention as we passed along. But the tips I
had to hand out before the taxi started would stagger the human
imagination if I told you the sum total.
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