the summer of 1909. He
stayed with me in Glasgow once for a week-end, and on the Sunday
afternoon we together visited a friend of his who lived near, a literary
man, who then was engaged in writing a series of lives of the Poets for
some publishing house. An interesting part of our conversation was about
Carlyle with whom this friend was intimate, had in fact just returned
from visiting him at Chelsea. He told us many interesting stories of the
sage. I remember one. He was staying with the Carlyles, when Mrs.
Carlyle was alive. One evening at tea, a copper kettle, with hot water,
stood on the hob. Mrs. Carlyle made a movement as if to rise, with her
eye directed to the kettle; the friend, divining her wish, rose and
handed her the kettle. She thanked him, and, with a pathetic and wistful
gaze at Carlyle, added, "Ay, Tam, ye never did the like o' that!"

My first trip abroad was in 1883, and my companion, G. G. We went to
Paris via Newhaven, Dieppe and Rouen, and at Rouen stayed a day and a
night, and spent about a fortnight in Paris. We were accompanied from
London by a friend I have not yet named, one who was well known in the
railway world, Tony Visinet, the British Engineering and Commercial Agent
of the Western Railway of France; a delightful companion always, full of
the charm and vivacity that belong to his country. He took us to see his
mother at Rouen, who lived in an old-fashioned house retired from the
road, in a pleasant court-yard; a charming old lady, with whom G. G. was
able to converse, but I was not. Tony Visinet's life was full of
movement and variety. He had lodgings in London, and a flat in Paris,
traversed the Channel continually, and I remember his proudly celebrating
his fifteen hundredth crossing.

From childhood I had longed to see something of the world, and this
excursion to Paris was the first gratification of that wish. Paris now
is as familiar to me almost as London, but then was strange and new.
Rouen and its cathedral we first saw by moonlight, a beautiful and
impressive sight, idealised to me by the thought that we were in sunny
France. Little I imagined then how much of the world in later years I
should see; but strong desires often accomplish their own fulfilment, and
so it came to pass.

CHAPTER XIV.
TERMINALS, RATES AND FARES, AND OTHER MATTERS

Of course it was right that Parliament, when conferring upon the railway
companies certain privileges, such as the