But we must be early at the station. Early, indeed! Peppered and pelted all the way, tweaked and shot at; but ever and always with only the harmless confetti and soft nosegays.
Sure that we are the first to leave, sure that no others are there before us, we pass into the outer baggage-room. Fifty more are there pressed hard against the closed door.
The crowd swells; hundreds are behind us; we can scarcely keep our feet. Yet what a good-natured crowd! The hour for the train to leave passes. By and by the closed door opens a crack; a gilt-banded arm is thrust through and one person taken out, and the solemn door closed again.
So, one by one, we ooze through, pass the turnstile in the passage under surveillance of the keen-eyed officer, and are admitted into the saloon, which is also locked.
We sink down into a seat nearest the one of two doors which instinct tells us is to be opened. Again we wait an hour till the last panting victim is passed through the stile.
Then, O! it is not our door which unlocks and opens but the other. We rush for a compartment; but no! all appear filled, so we step to an official and state our case.
He conducts us on, on, nearly to the end of the train, over stones and timbers; but, at last, bestows us out of that crowd in a compartment with but three persons. Soon we leave, only two hours later than the time advertised.
For in France, little pets, the trains wait for the people. The people are locked in till all is ready; then follows a rush like a grand game of “puss, puss in the corner!” and almost always there is some poor puss who cannot get in.
Guess how many bushels of confetti rattled on the floor of our chamber that night!