The game seemed not only difficult, but impossible, for the porters were not only elusive but for the most part invisible. Preoccupied-looking men strolled about with a handful of labels and a paste-pot, but could not be induced to decorate our luggage therewith.
“The principle is all wrong!” I declared. “It is absurd for one to be such a slave to one’s luggage. Somebody ought to invent a trunk with legs and intelligence, that would run after us,—instead of our running after it!”
“Even that would not be necessary,” responded the Wag O’ The World, in his mild way; “if somebody would only invent a porter with legs and intelligence, it would fulfil all requirements.”
Now this is the strange part.
Though there were more than a thousand people waiting to have their luggage stuck (i. e., labelled), and though there were but few of the invisible porters, yet everybody was properly stuck, and started when the train did!
The next entertainment was the securing of an entire compartment for our party of three. This is always accomplished in England, but by many devious and often original devices.
“I’ve thought of a good plan, which I’ve never tried yet,” observed the Wag O’ The World, “to get a compartment to one’s self. That is, to invent some collapsible rubber people,—like balloon pigs, you know,—that may be carried in the pocket, and blown up when necessary. Three or four of these, when blown up and placed in the various seats would fool any guard. And if one were shaped like a baby, with a crying arrangement that would work mechanically, the others would not be needed.”
This plan was ingenious, but, like everything else in England, unnecessary. It is one of the most striking characteristics of the English that nothing is absolutely necessary to their well-being or happiness. If anything is omitted or mislaid, it is not missed but promptly forgotten, and no harm done.
After an hour or two of pleasant travel through the hop-poled scenery of Southeastern England, we reached a place with one of those absurd names which always suggest Edward Lear’s immortal lyrics, where we must needs change cars.
My Cherished Friends strolled along the length of the platform to the luggage van, and judiciously selected such boxes as they cared to claim; though I am sure they did not get all of their own, and acquired a few belonging to other passengers. I easily picked out my own American trunk, and, surrounded by our spoil, we stood on the platform while the train wandered on.