"FIRST-CLASS" TRAVELLING
Made Easy, by Paying a "Third-class" Fare and a small additional Tip.
(BY ONE WHO HAS DONE IT.)
1. Arrive at station in four-wheeler, accompanied by lots of superfluous rugs, wraps, air-cushions, and pillows, &c., and if your domestic arrangements permit of it, two young ladies and one middle-aged one, who should assume an anxious and sympathetic mien.
2. On your cab drawing up, stay with a gentle forbearance the rush of the ordinary attentive porter, and request him, as if you had something important to communicate, to send you "the guard of the train" by which you propose to travel. On the appearance of this official, who will not fail to turn up, you will now appeal to one of your three female assistants, the middle-aged one for choice. Placing your case, as it were, in her hands, she will, in a half-sympathetic, half-commanding tone, address the official somewhat as follows:—"This gentleman, who is travelling to Barminster, and is going third-class (she makes a point of this), is, as you see, a great invalid, and he will require (this with a certain sense of being understood to mean a handsome tip) a carriage to himself." If said with a certain self-assurance, involving a species of lofty wink, this will probably be understood in the right sense by the official in question, and will be probably met by some such assurance as—"The train is very full, Madam, but I will do my best for the gentleman, and can ensure him, I think, a compartment to himself, at least, as far as Bolchester, where I leave the train. But I will explain the matter to my successor, and I have no doubt that he will be able (this also with a significant wink) to ensure the gentleman's seclusion. You are, I think, four? If you will follow me, and take my arm, Sir, I think we shall be able to manage it for you."
3. Enlist the assistance of several attendant porters, regardless of apparent outlay, who have been fairly let into your secret, and are prepared to, and in fact absolutely do, empty a third-class compartment already packed with passengers for Barminster, who retreat awe-stricken at your approach.
4. Immediately on taking possession of your carriage, recline the whole length of the five seats, faced by your three sympathetic and anxious-miened female companions. Be careful to give each of the assistant porters certainly not less than sixpence apiece in ostentatious fashion. Do not, however, as yet administer the shilling, or perhaps, eighteenpence you purpose giving to the original guard of the train who is to hand you over to the official who will have charge of you after Bolchester.
5. You will possibly have a mauvais quart d'heure before departure, for though your guard, in hopes of the remunerative fee, will have carefully locked you in, he will not be able to prevent the calculating and more or less unfeeling British public, who, composed of a party of nine, are looking for as many places as they can find together, from discovering that you have six vacant places in your carriage, and directing the attention of other railway officials, not initiated into your secret agreement, to this circumstance. You must therefore be prepared for some such curt brutality as, "Why, look 'ere, EMMA, there's room for 'arf-a-dozen of us 'ere!" or, "I'm sure 'e needn't be a sprawlin' like that, takin' 'arf the carriage to 'isself," a rebuke which your feminine supporters resent in their severest manner. You are, however, at length saved by the interposition of your guardian angel, who sweeps away the party of nine unseated ones with a voice of commanding control, as much as to say, "This isn't your end of the train; besides, can't you see the poor gentleman's pretty well dying?" And he does hurry them off, and pack them in somewhere or other, but whether to their satisfaction or not, it is easier to hazard a guess than faithfully to record.
6. Bolchester is reached, and you are formally introduced to your final guarding and protecting angel, who rapidly takes in the situation, and by an assurance that he will see to your comfort, this, accompanied by a slightly perceptible wink, leaves you in happy expectation, which the result justifies, of reaching your destination uninvaded.