It was half-past eight when the landlady said good-night, assuring us everything would be ready early in the morning.—But we went to bed at once. The last thing we heard before we fell asleep was the rain still pouring into the waters of the Oise and upon the paved streets of Beaumont.
OVER THE PAVÉ.
NEXT morning, because we were to go by train, we realised the advantage of travelling by tricycle. Early as we were, our clothes, dry and clean, were in readiness. When we appeared in them in the public dining-room the maid at first did not recognise us.—I think it is well worth recording that our bill amounted to just twelve francs and fifty centimes, though all the items, even to the fire that dried our entire wardrobe, were mentioned separately.—After breakfast J—— carried the luggage-carrier to a blacksmith within a few doors of the hotel. The latter examined it, found the trouble to be but trifling, and accordingly treated it as such, to our later discomfiture. The rain had stopped, though the clouds were still heavy. There was nothing to detain us save the provoking fact that the train would not start for an hour. It was at these times we best appreciated the independence of cycling.
This delay gave us a chance to see something of Beaumont, a town we found interesting chiefly because it was there we crossed the route of Mr. Stevenson’s Inland Voyage. That whatever attractions it may possess do not appear on its surface, is shown by this book, since Mr. Stevenson, who on his way down the Oise must have paddled past, never even names Beaumont. Mr. Evelyn, who in the course of his travels went through it, merely mentions it, while our sentimental Master ignores it altogether. It would therefore seem more in his spirit to say as little about it as possible.
—We left the train at St. Denis, had the tricycle lifted out—always a trouble at way stations—only to be told the Ceinture was three-quarters of a mile nearer Paris, and that we could not carry the machine on it, since baggage-cars were never attached to the trains. The porter suggested we could walk to the first Ceinture station, and take the train to the Gare de Lyon. He would put the velocipede on another train that would carry it to the Gare du Nord. We could on our arrival return to the Gare du Nord and ride the velocipede across the city. If Monsieur was pleased to do this he would charge himself with the machine. This ingenious suggestion we dismissed with the contempt it deserved. Then he said there was nothing to do but to wait at St. Denis for the next train to Paris, due in an hour and a half.
I declare during that long wasted interval we did not as much as turn our heads on the side towards the Abbey. Richness of their treasury! Stuff and nonsense! Bating their jewels, which are all false, I would not give three sous for any one thing in it but Jaidas’ lantern; nor for that neither, only as it grows dark it might be of use. But on second thoughts I doubt if it would be much better than the lamp on the tricycle. Of course Mr. Tristram Shandy’s words are recognised at once? But then, why should I not use them if they set forth the sentiments that certainly would have been ours had we once remembered there was an Abbey at St. Denis?
PARIS.
CRACK, crack—crack, crack—crack, crack. So this is Paris! quoth we, continuing in the same mood, when, having at last reached the Gare du Nord, we went out on the street in search of a cab—So this is Paris!