Several years ago I was traveling alone on my way to Bohemia. With me, in the railway carriage, I had an aluminum traveler's typewriter, enclosed in, and fastened down to a leather case. I had also a large leather dispatch box, containing several chapters of a new novel I was writing, and which I meant to finish whilst abroad.
At the last moment, just as I was starting on my journey, a friend had given me a small Russian ikon, and I had put that in the box with my writing materials.
On reaching the frontier into Austria, I got out with the other travelers, carrying the typewriter in my hand to ensure its safety. A porter brought along the dispatch box, and the luggage from the van to the Custom House.
I had nothing to declare and said so, but when the officials came to look at the typewriter and the contents of the dispatch box, their civil attitude changed, and I was curtly told that I would have to remain behind, in order that a more thorough examination might be made.
There was little use in expostulating, no one took the smallest notice of any explanations I made, and I had the unhappy fate to behold all my fellow travelers stream out onto the platform, and make for the waiting train, and the growing conviction that they would proceed on their journey without me.
When alone with the officials I had the field to myself, and I explained that I was a British subject, and a British novelist, but they merely looked at me with the same blend of incredulity my fellow countrymen so often favor me with, when they accidentally discover that I am synonymous with the writer, Violet Tweedale.
How well I know the look and the words accompanying it: "Are you Violet Tweedale, the novelist? Well! who'd have thought it? I never would have guessed."
Their expression says plainly enough, "You don't look capable of writing out a laundry bill, far less a novel."
Seeing that my statements made no impression upon the Customs officials, I resigned myself to an unknown fate, and in a few moments, looking through the open door, I had the misery of seeing my train glide out of the station, leaving me behind.
An animated conversation now began which occupied at least ten minutes, and my typewriter and dispatch box were subjected to a most rigid scrutiny. I kept on imploring the officials not to break the typewriter, but they paid no heed, and at last, after playing about with it for some time, they requested me to give them an exhibition of its powers. Alas! it was too late. The machine was thoroughly upset with the rough fingering it had been subjected to, and I could not get it to work.