I’ll be surprised if I don’t anyhow.
He decorated my passport with a heliotrope inscription, naming the port from which I’m to depart from France, the hotel in London, and my good ship, and sent me into the next room, where a vice-consul confirmed the military visé and relieved me of two francs.
The train leaves at seven to-morrow morning, and between now and then I have only to pack and to settle with the hotel. The former chore will be easy, for I possess just half as much personal property as when I came. Parisian laundries have commandeered the rest.
Monday, September 17. London.
With tear-dimmed eyes, I said farewell to Paris yesterday morning at the unearthly hour of seven. There was not even a gendarme on hand to see me off.
The trip from Paris to England is arranged with the customary French passion for convenience. They get you out of bed at five to catch the train, which arrives in the port at noon. The Channel boat leaves port at ten o’clock at night, giving you ten solid hours in which to think. Not ten either, for the last two are consumed in waiting for your turn to be examined by the customs and viséed by the Authorities du Exit.
Customs examination in this case is a pure waste of time. The gentleman only wants to know whether you are trying to smuggle any gold money out of France. I’d like to see the departing guest who has any kind of money left to smuggle.
The Authorities du Exit are seven in number. They sit round a table, and you pass from one to the other until something has been done to you by each. One feels your pulse, another looks at your tongue, a third reads your passport right side up, a fourth reads it upside down, a fifth compares you with your photograph, a sixth inspects your visés for physical defects, and the seventh tries to throw a scare into you.
I got by the first six easily. No. 7 read both sides of the passport and then asked by whom I was employed. I told him.
“Where are your credentials?” he demanded.