Later on, by one of the oddest accidents you could conceive possible, my aunts found themselves in the same first-class compartment as the foreign-looking gentleman; and as the Southampton to London Express clanked and jolted and rattled upon its metal way (rail-carriages being unprovided at that early date with springs, pneumatic brakes, and other mechanical inventions for the better ease of the public), the courtesy and consideration of their well-bred fellow-traveler, who spoke excellent English—combined with his undeniable good looks—created an impression upon my Aunt Julietta, which by the time the Express had rattled and jolted and clanked into the junction of the provincial garrison town of Dullingstoke (near which was situated the family mansion of my grandparents), had developed into an attachment of the early, hapless, unreciprocated order.
“If only,” thought my sentimental Aunt, “the train could go on for ever!”
But the train stopped; and there was the family chariot, with the purple-nosed coachman on the box; there was the boy who had cleaned the knives, now promoted to page’s livery, at the noses of Chestnut and Browney, waiting to convey my aunts to the shelter of the paternal roof. They collected muffs, reticules, and parcels.... The military-looking young foreign gentleman handed them out, one after the other, and bowed over their respective hands with a grace that caused Aunt Marietta to exclaim, “My dear!” and Aunt Julietta to return, “Did you ever?” as the family chariot drove away, and the Express, with much preliminary snorting, prepared to start again, and did in fact start; but brought up with a jerk, and clanked back to the platform to pick up a passenger of importance, who had arrived behind time.
A dazzling scarlet mail-phaeton, pulled by a pair of high-spirited, sweating, chestnut trotters, had brought him to the junction, sitting, enveloped in a huge shaggy box-coat with buttons as large as Abernethy biscuits; covered with a curly-brimmed, low-crowned shiny beaver hat that might have belonged to a Broad Church parson of sporting proclivities, by the side of the smart groom who drove.... Another groom in the little seat behind sheltered him from the rain with a vast green silk gig-umbrella, just as though he had been any common, ordinary landholder of means and position, with a stake in the Borough Elections, a seat on the local Bench, and the right to put J.P. after his name; and commit local poachers caught by his own gamekeepers in his own plantations, then and there, in his own library, to the District Lock Up for trial at the Weekly Sessions.
But the guard,—a functionary in the absurdest uniform, a cross between a penny-postman’s and a military pensioner’s, knew better. So did the porters, encased in green velveteen corduroy, as worn by the porters of to-day; so did the station-master, crowned with the gilt-banded top-hat of a bank-messenger and sporting the crimson waistcoat of a beadle. With a Parliamentary Down-train waiting outside and shrieking to come through, while a Composite of horse-boxes and cattle-trucks and coal-trucks bumped and jolted over the Main Line metals; with the Up-Express from Southampton panting to be green-flagged and belled upon its metal road to London, he waited, his gilt-banded top-hat respectfully in hand, to receive the distinguished passenger, who did not hurry, possibly in virtue of his bulk, but waddled down the platform with a gait you felt to be peculiarly his own, involving a short turn to the right as he stepped out with the right foot (encased in the largest size of shiny patent-leather boot), and a short turn to the left as he set down the left one, as though inviting the whole world to take a comprehensive, satisfactory stare at a great and good man, and be the better for it.
Impatient passengers, projecting the upper halves of their bodies from the carriage-windows, saw nothing much in him. But to these, awed porters and reverent officials whispered behind their expectant palms,—on being conjured to say what the deuce the delay was about?—that the gentleman who had caused it was a Government Contractor, tremendous influential and uncommon rich; so much so as to be able to break the Bank of England by the simple process of drawing a whacking check upon it. When the hearer laughed heartily at this, or snorted indignantly, the officials and porters amended that, perhaps to say the Bank of England was a bit too strong, but that everybody knew the gentleman was a Millionaire, and regularly rolling in his thousands.
He rolled now towards the compartment of which the foreign gentleman who had assisted my aunts to alight was now the only occupant; and allowed himself to be respectfully hoisted in, and tenderly placed in a corner seat, with his valise and hat-box beside him. He filled up the compartment—compartments were narrower in those days than they are now—as completely as a large, shaggy bear might have done, when he got upon his legs again, and stood at the window, beaming so benevolently upon the admiring crowd assembled on the platform that the station-master, upon whom had not fallen one drop of gold or silver manna out of the smiler’s jingling trousers-pockets, felt impelled to say: “Lord bless you, Mr. Thompson Jowell, sir! A safe journey up to London and back! Guard, be extra careful this trip!” And the guard, who had not been tipped, touched his tall hat respectfully; and the porter, who had reaped nothing but honor from carrying Mr. Thompson Jowell’s hat-box and valise; and the other porter, who had rammed scalding hot-water tins into the carriage, that the large feet of the popular idol might be warmed thereby, threw up each his muffin-shaped cap, and cried “Hooray!” And the train started,—so suddenly, in the mistaken zeal of the engine-driver, that Thompson Jowell was shot with violence into a distant corner of the carriage, and so violently bonneted by collision with the rack above, that only his large, red, projecting ears saved him from being completely extinguished by the low-crowned, curly-brimmed, shiny beaver hat, that might have been a sporting parson’s of the jovial Broad Church brand.
He took the hat off after that, revealing his little pear-shaped head of upright, bristly gray hair, and his forehead that slanted like the lid of a Noah’s Ark over all the jumbled beasts inside, and goggled with his large, moist, circular brown eyes upon his fellow-traveler over the voluminous crimson silk handkerchief with which he mopped his damp and shining face. He unbuttoned his greatcoat and threw his long bulky body back in his corner with a “whoof!” of relief, and put up his short, thick legs upon the seat, saying to Dunoisse, with a jerky, patronizing nod:
“Plenty of room, sir, if you’re inclined to do the same. These new-fangled hot-water tins draw a man’s corns consumedly!” Adding, a moment after Dunoisse’s smiling refusal: “Please yourself, and you’ll please me. ‘Hang manners! Give me comfort!’ says Mister John Bull.... You’re French yourself, I take it?”