CHAPTER XIX. PREPARATIONS FOR THE ROAD.
IF the arrival of a great family at an hotel be a scene of unusual bustle and excitement, with teeming speculations as to the rank and the wealth of the new-comers, the departure has also its interests, and even of a higher nature. In the former case all is vague, shadowy, and uncertain. The eye of the spectator wanders from the muffled figures as they descend, to scrutinize the lackeys, and even the luggage, as indicative of the strangers' habits and condition; and even to the shrewd perceptions of that dread functionary, the head waiter, the identity of the traveller assumes no higher form nor any more tangible shape than that they are No. 42 or 57.
When the hour of leave-taking has come, however, their characters have become known, their tastes and habits understood, and no mean insight obtained into their prejudices, their passions, and their pursuits. The imposing old gentleman, whose rubicund nose and white waistcoat are the guarantees for a taste in port, has already inspired the landlord with a sincere regard. “My Lady's” half-invalid caprices about diet, and air, and sunshine, have all written themselves legibly in “the bill.” The tall son's champagne score incurred of a night, and uncounted of a morning, are not unrecorded virtues; while even the pale young ladies, whose sketching propensities involved donkeys, and ponies, and picnics, go not unremembered.
Their hours of rising and retiring, their habits of society or seclusion, their preferences for the “Post” or the “Times,” have all silently been ministering to the estimate formed of them; so that in the commonest items of the hotel ledger are the materials for their history. And with what true charity are their characters weighed! How readily does mine host forgive the transgressions which took their origin in his own Burgundy! how blandly smile at the follies begotten of his Johannisberg! With what angelic temper does the hostess pardon the little liberties “young gentlemen from college will take!” Oh, if our dear, dear friends would but read us with half the charity, or even bestow upon our peccadilloes a tithe of this forgiveness! And why should it not be so? What are these same friends and acquaintances but guests in the same great inn which we call “the world”? and who, as they never take upon them to settle our score, need surely not trouble themselves about the “items.”
While the Daltons were still occupied in the manner our last chapter has described, the “Hotel de Russie” was a scene of considerable bustle, the preparations for departure engaging every department of the household within doors and without. There were carriage-springs to be lashed with new cordage, drag-chains new tipped with steel, axles to smear, hinges to oil, imperials to buckle on, cap-cases to be secured; and then what a deluge of small articles to be stowed away in most minute recesses, and yet be always at hand when called for! cushions and cordials, and chauffe-pieds and “Quarterlies,” smelling-boxes and slippers, and spectacles and cigar-cases, journals and “John Murrays,” to be disposed of in the most convenient places. Every corridor and landing was blocked up with baggage, and the courier wiped his forehead, and “sacre'd” in half desperation at the mountain of trunks and portmanteaus that lay before him.
“This is not ours,” said he, as he came to a very smart valise of lacquered leather, with the initials A. J. in brass on the top.
“No, that 's Mr. Jekyl's,” said Mr. George's man, Twig. “He ain't a-goin' with you; he travels in our britzska.”
“I'm more like de conducteur of a diligenz than a family courier,” muttered the other, sulkily. “I know noting of de baggage, since we take up strangers at every stage! and always some Teufeln poor devils that have not a sou en poche!”
“What's the matter now, Mister Greg'ry?” said Twig, who very imperfectly understood the other's jargon.