om Holborn
Viaduct at 9:30 on Friday. I'll write and let you know my impressions,
as the pater calls it; and you might let your young sister see them too,
if you like.

Yours truly, T. Hooker.

Paris, _August_ 3.

Dear Gus,--We had an awful squeak for the train at Holborn, owing to
Jim's hatbox falling off the cab and his insisting on going back to pick
it up. It seems to me rather humbug taking chimneys at all, but he says
that's all I know of foreign travel; so I caved in and brought mine too.

Another thing that nearly lost the train was a row about the luggage.
The fellows wanted to do me out of two bob because they said my
portmanteau was four pounds overweight! There was nearly a shindy, I
can tell you, only Jim said we'd better walk into the chap on our way
back. Anyhow, I wasn't going to be done, so I unlocked my portmanteau
and took out my spare jacket and a pair of bags, and carried them over
my arm, and that made the weight all right. The fellows tried to grin,
of course, but I fancy they were rather blue about it.

Our tickets cost 45 shillings 6 pence each, not counting grub on the
way, which about finished up a L5 note for the two of us.

Jim and I had a stunning time in the train. There was only one other
old chap in the carriage. When the fellow came for the tickets outside
Dover, Jim happened to be up on the luggage rack, and the fellow would
never have spotted him if the rack hadn't given way. Then he got
crusty, and we all but got left behind by the steamer.

Beastly tubs those steamers are! I wonder why they don't make some that
go steady. And they ought to make the seats facing the side of the
vessel, and not with your back to it. You miss such a lot of the view.
I sat with my face to the side of the vessel most of the way. I don't
exactly know what became of Jim. He said afterwards he'd been astern
watching the English coast disappear. I suppose that accounted for his
looking so jolly blue. We weren't sorry to clear out of that boat, I
can tell you.

Jim was first up the gangway, and I was third, owing to dropping my
spare bags half-way up and having to pick them up. There was an awfully
civil French fellow at the top of the gangway, who touched his hat to
me. I couldn't make out what he said, but I fancied he must be asking
for a tip, so I gave him a copper. That seemed to make him awfully
wild, and he wanted to know my name. I had to tell him, and he wrote it
down; b