"I don't know," said Mr. George.
"It may mean a smash-up," said Rollo.
"Very likely," said Mr. George.
"Every traveller," continued Rollo, looking again at his paper, "is responsible, personally, for all violations of the custom-house regulations, or those of the police."
"That's all right," said Mr. George.
"And the last regulation is," said Rollo, "that the travellers cannot smoke in the diligence, nor take any dogs in."
"Very well," said Mr. George, "we have no dogs, and we don't wish to smoke, either in the diligence or any where else."
"They are very good regulations," said Rollo; and so saying, he folded up the paper, and put it back into his wallet.
On the evening before the day appointed for the journey, Rollo took the valise which contained the principal portion of his own and his uncle's clothes, and went with it in a carriage to the office. Mr. George offered to accompany him, but Rollo said it was not necessary, and so he took with him a boy named Cyrus, whom he had become acquainted with at the hotel.
The carriage, when it arrived at the diligence station, drove in under an archway, and entered a spacious court surrounded by lofty buildings. There was a piazza, with columns, all around the court. Along this piazza, on the four sides of the building, were the various offices of the different lines of diligences, with the diligences themselves standing before the doors.