He returned, followed by a porter, who wheeled on a truck a “put-up luncheon”! It was in a hamper, shaped like a large-sized wicker suit-case. This stupendous affair was pushed under the seat, and before I had time to remonstrate, my train started.
Impelled alike by hunger and curiosity, I finally opened the gigantic lunch-basket. Inside were carefully planned compartments containing several courses of a delicious cold luncheon. Ample provision of serviettes and oiled paper protected the viands from possible dust or cinders, and the array of flat silver was bewildering. Plates and cups fitted into their niches, and the whole collection was of a completeness beyond compare. This is as yet an untried field for American enterprise, but I suppose it will come.
I finally opened this gigantic lunch basket.
The disposition of the emptied hamper was simply to restore it to its place under the seat, and leave it there. Apparently it had the instincts of a homing pigeon.
Leaving Dover was like backing away from a picture post-card. I have sometimes thought lithographed colors unnaturally bright, but the green and white and blue of receding Dover on a sunshiny day make aniline dyes seem dull by comparison.
The crossing on the Channel steamer was delightful, and I now know the dreadful tales I have heard of this experience to be mere peevish malignity. I sat on the deck of the dancing boat, and when the spray grew mischievous, kind-hearted attendants wrapped me in tarpaulin mackintoshes, or whatever may be the French for their queer raincoats.
I ruined my hat and feathers, but, in the exhilaration of that mad dash through the tumbling, rioting sea, who could think of personal economy?
All too soon we reached Calais, and here, again, a living, breathing picture confronted me. Unlike Dover, the harbor at Calais is like an exquisite aquarelle. The high lights and half-tones are marvellous, and the composition is a masterpiece. But (and here I made my two rules that should be invariably observed by the traveller from London to Paris) there is not a more fearful wild-fowl living than your French customs inspector.
Troubles of all sorts cropped up, and the porters and officials talked such strange French that they couldn’t understand mine!