"Oh, us means Clara, and myself, and baby, and any friends we choose to bring,—or, I should say, who will do us the honor to accompany us. We are hospitable people and the more the merrier. I know how much house-room Carl has; there is always a prophet's chamber, as the parsons call it, for such occasions. You must come; there's no two ways about that. You will see two very fine women there,—nice persons, as you would say: my sisters-in-law, Miss Vanderlyn, and Mrs. Carl Benson."
"But at any rate, would it not be better to write first, and apprise him of the additional visitor?"
"We should be there a week before our letter. Ecoutez! There is no post-office near us here, and my note would have to go to the city by a special messenger. Then the offices along the Hudson are perfectly antediluvian and barbarous, and mere mockery and delusion. Observe, I speak of the small local posts; on the main routes letters travel fast enough. You may send to Albany in nine hours; to Carl's place, which is about two-thirds of the distance to Albany, it would take more than half as many days,—if, indeed, it arrived at all. I remember once propounding this problem in the Blunder and Bluster:—'If a letter sent from New York to Hastings, distance 22 miles, never gets there, how long will it take one to go from New York to Red Hook, distance 110 miles?' We are shockingly behind you in our postal arrangements; there I give up the country. 'No, you musn't write, but come yourself,' as Penelope said to Ulysses."
Ashburner made no further opposition, and they were off the next morning accordingly. Before four a cart had started with the baggage, and directions to take up Ashburner's trunks and man-servant on the way. Soon after the coachman and groom departed with the saddle-horses, trotters, and wagon; for Benson, meditating some months' absence, took with him the whole of his stud, except the black colt, who was strongly principled against going on the water, and had nearly succeeded in breaking his master's neck on one occasion, when Harry insisted on his embarking. The long-tailed bays were left harnessed to the Rockaway,—a sort of light omnibus open at the sides, very like a char-à-banc, except that the seats run crosswise, and capable of accommodating from six to nine persons: that morning it held six, including the maid and nurse. Benson took the reins at a quarter-past five, and as the steamboat dock was situated at the very southern extremity of the city, and they had three miles of terrible pavement to traverse, besides nearly twelve of road, he arrived there just seven minutes before seven; at which hour, to the second, the good boat Swallow was to take wing. In a twinkling the horses were unharnessed and embarked; the carriage instantly followed them; and Harry, after assuring himself that all his property, animate and inanimate, was safely shipped, had still time to purchase, for his own and his friend's edification, the Jacobin, the Blunder and Bluster, the Inexpressible, and other popular papers, which an infinity of dirty boys were crying at the top of their not very harmonious voices.
"Our people do business pretty fast," said he, in a somewhat triumphant tone. "How this would astonish them on the Continent! See there!" as a family, still later than his own, arrived with a small mountain of trunks, all of which made their way on board as if they had wings. "When I traveled in Germany two years ago with Mrs. B. and her sister, we had eleven packages, and it used to take half-an-hour at every place to weigh and ticket them beforehand, not withstanding which one or two would get lost every now and then. In my own country I have traveled in all directions with large parties, never have been detained five minutes for baggage, and never lost anything except once—an umbrella. Now we are going."
The mate cried, "All ashore!" the newsboys and apple-venders disappeared; the planks were drawn in; the long, spidery walking-beam began to play; and the Swallow had started with her five hundred passengers.
"Let us stroll around the boat: I want to show you how we get up these things here."
The ladies' cabin on deck and the two general cabins below were magnificently furnished with the most expensive material, and in the last Parisian style, and this display and luxury were the more remarkable as the fare was but twelve shillings for a hundred and sixty miles. Ashburner admitted that the furniture was very elegant, but thought it out of place, and altogether too fine for the purpose.
"So you would say, probably, that the profuse and varied dinner we shall have is thrown away on the majority of the passengers, who bolt it in half-an-hour. But there are some who habitually appreciate the dinner and the furniture: it does them good, and it does the others no harm,—nay, it does them good, too. The wild man from the West, who has but recently learned to walk on his hind legs, is dazzled with these sofas and mirrors, and respects them more than he would more ordinary furniture. At any rate, it's a fault on right side. The furniture of an English hotel is enough to give a traveler a fit of the blues, such an extreme state of fustiness it is sure to be in. Did it ever strike you, by the way, how behindhand your countrymen are in the matter of hotels? When a traveller passes from England into Belgium (putting France out of the question), it is like going from Purgatory into Paradise."
"I don't think I ever stayed at a London hotel."