ut as he didn't get my address, I hope there won't be a fuss
about it. I didn't see any harm in tipping him, but I suppose it's
against French law, and I don't mean to do it any more.

There was an awfully rum lot of chaps in our carriage between Calais and
Paris. You'd have thought they had never seen a pair of bags before in
their life; for they stared at mine all the way from Calais to Amiens,
where we got out for refreshment. I thought it best to take my bags
with me to the buffet, as they might have humbugged about with them if
I'd left them in the carriage.

They ought to make English compulsory in French schools. The duffers in
the buffet didn't even know what a dough-nut was! Not even when Jim
looked it up in the dixy and asked for _noix a pate_. The idiot asked
us if we meant "rosbif," or "biftik," or "palal"--that's all the English
they seemed to know, and think English fellows feed off nothing else.
However, we did get some grub, and paid for it too. When we got back to
the carriage I took the precaution of sticking my bags on the rack above
Jim's head; so all the fellows stared at him the rest of the way, and I
got a stunning sleep.

We had an awful doing, as Bunker would call it--by the way, did he pull
off his tennis match against Turner on breaking-up day?--when we got to
Paris. The row at Holborn was a fool to it. Just fancy, they made Jim
and me open both our portmanteaux and hat-boxes before they would let us
leave the station! I can tell you, old man, I'm scarcely cool yet after
that disturbance, and if it hadn't been for Jim I guess they'd have
found out how a "Rug" can kick out! Jim says it's the regular thing,
and they collar all the cigars they can find. All I can say is, it's
robbery and cool cheek, and I wish you or some of the fellows would
write to the _Times_ or the _Boy's Own Paper_ and get it stopped. We
had to turn every blessed thing out on the counter, and pack up again
afterwards. It's a marvel to me how the mater stowed all the things
away. I couldn't get half of them back, and had to shove the rest into
my rug and tie it up at the corners like a washerwoman's bundle. Jim's
too easy-going by half. I'm certain, if he'd backed me up, we could
have hacked over the lot of them; and I shouldn't have lost that spare
pair of bags, which I forgot all about in the shindy. I hope there'll
be a war with France soon. We were jolly fagged when we got to the inn,
I can tell you.