As I pulled out Munck’s map, chalked out a route for the youth, and gave him a little practical advice on the subject, a regular spasm came across me. Iö was never plagued by that malicious gadfly, or “tsetse,” so much as I was for the rest of the day by an irresistible desire to be off to the old country. The steamer was to start in three days. On the third day I stood on board of her, in the highest possible spirits. The ingenuous youth was also there; but high hope was not the expression on his countenance. Most wofully he approached me. To make assurance doubly sure, and secure a good berth, he had left home the day before. On arriving at the terminus, his box was not to be found—the box with all his traps, and the 50l. in it. He had sent telegrams, or telegraphemes, to the four ends of Great Britain for the missing box; but it was not forthcoming. In a few hours we weighed anchor. The expectant visitor was left behind, and as there was no vessel to Norway for the next fortnight, the chances were that his trip thither would not take place. The above facts will serve as a warning to young travellers.
As daylight peered through the small porthole in the morning, I found that we had no less than eight people in our cabin, and that the porthole was shut, although it was smooth water.
“What an atmosphere,” said an Englishman, in an adjoining berth. “I have opened that porthole two or three times in the night; but that fat, drum-bellied Norwegian there, who seems as fond of hot, stifling air as a melon, has shut it again.”
“What can you expect of the people of a country,” replied I, “where the windows are often not made to open?”
A tall, gentlemanly-looking man, who stood before the looking-glass, and had just brushed his glossy wig into a peak like Mr. Pecksniff, here turned round and said, in Norwegian-English—
“I do assure you, sir, that the Norwegian windows will open.”
“Yes, in the towns; but frequently in the country not. I have been there a good deal, and I speak from experience.”
I find that our friend, who is very communicative, was in London in the days of the Prince Regent—yes, and he once dined with him at the London Tavern, at a dinner given in aid of foreigners in distress: the ticket cost 10l. He remembers perfectly well how, on another occasion, a tortoise-shell, all alive, was carried round London in a cart, with a notice that it would be made into tortoise-shell soup on a certain day. He dined, and the soup was super-excellent.
Consul ——, for I found that he had attained that distinction—was well acquainted with all the resorts of London. Worxall pleased him much. He had even learned to box. He had also something to say about the war with the Swedes, led on by Karl Johann, in which he took part.
After dinner we divert ourselves by observing the sleeping countenance of the obese Norwegian who was so fond of carbonic acid gas, assume all sorts of colours,—livid, red, yellow,—not from repletion, though this might well have been the case, but from the light of the painted glass overhead, which transferred its chameleon hues to his physiognomy.