"I have smoked my fourpenny shag in the sanded bars of Fleet Street,
and I have puffed my twopenny Manilla in the gilded balls of the
Criterion; I have quaffed my foaming beer of Burton where
Islington's famed Angel gathers the little thirsty ones beneath her
shadowing wings, and I have sipped my tenpenny ordinaire in many a
garlic-scented salon of Soho. On the back of the strangely-moving
ass I have urged - or, to speak more correctly, the proprietor of the
ass, or his agent, from behind has urged - my wild career across the
sandy heaths of Hampstead, and my canoe has startled the screaming
wild-fowl from their lonely haunts amid the sub-tropical regions of
Battersea. Adown the long, steep slope of One Tree Hill have I
rolled from top to foot, while laughing maidens of the East stood
round and clapped their hands and yelled; and, in the old-world
garden of that pleasant Court, where played the fair-haired children
of the ill-starred Stuarts, have I wandered long through many paths,
my arm entwined about the waist of one of Eve's sweet daughters,
while her mother raged around indignantly on the other side of the
hedge, and never seemed to get any nearer to us. I have chased the
lodging-house Norfolk Howard to his watery death by the pale lamp's
light; I have, shivering, followed the leaping flea o'er many a mile
of pillow and sheet, by the great Atlantic's margin. Round and
round, till the heart - and not only the heart - grows sick, and the
mad brain whirls and reels, have I ridden the small, but extremely
hard, horse, that may, for a penny, be mounted amid the plains of
Peckham Rye; and high above the heads of the giddy throngs of Barnet
(though it is doubtful if anyone among them was half so giddy as was
I) have I swung in highly-coloured car, worked by a man with a rope.
I have trod in stately measure the floor of Kensington's Town Hall
(the tickets were a guinea each, and included refreshments - when you
could get to them through the crowd), and on the green sward of the
forest that borders eastern Anglia by the oft-sung town of Epping I
have performed quaint ceremonies in a ring; I have mingled with the
teeming hordes of Drury Lane on Boxing Night, and, during the run of
a high-class piece, I have sat in lonely grandeur in the front row
of the gallery, and wished that I had spent my shilling instead in
the Oriental halls of the Alhambra."
"There you are," said B., "that is just as good as yours; and you
can write like that without going more than a few hours' journey
from London."
"We will discuss the matter no further," I replied. "You cannot, I
see, enter into my feelings. The wild heart of the traveller does
not throb within your breast; you cannot understand his longings.
No matter! Suffice it that I will come this journey with you. I
will buy a German conversation book, and a check-suit, and a blue
veil, and a white umbrella, and suchlike necessities of the English
tourist in Germany, this very afternoon. When do you start?"
"Well," he said, "it is a good two days' journey. I propose to
start on Friday."
"Is not Friday rather an unlucky day to start on?" I suggested.
"Oh, good gracious!" he retorted quite sharply, "what rubbish next?
As if the affairs of Europe were going to be arranged by Providence
according to whether you and I start for an excursion on a Thursday
or a Friday!"
He said he was surprised that a man who could be so sensible,
occasionally, as myself, could have patience to even think of such
old-womanish nonsense. He said that years ago, when he was a silly
boy, he used to pay attention to this foolish superstition himself,
and would never upon any consideration start for a trip upon a
Friday.
But, one year, he was compelled to do so. It was a case of either
starting on a Friday or not going at all, and he determined to
chance it.
He went, prepared for and expecting a series of accidents and
misfortunes. To return home alive was the only bit of pleasure he
hoped for from that trip.
As it turned out, however, he had never had a more enjoyable holiday
in his life before. The whole event was a tremendous success.
And after that, he had made up his mind to ALWAYS start on a Friday;
and he always did, and always had a good time.
He said that he would never, upon any consideration, start for a
trip upon any other day but a Friday now. It was so absurd, this
superstition about Friday.
So we agreed to start on the Friday, and I am to meet him at
Victoria Station at a quarter to eight in the evening.
THURSDAY, 22ND
The Question of Luggage. - First Friend's Suggestion. - Second
Friend's Suggestion. - Third Friend's Suggestion. - Mrs. Briggs'
Advice. - Our Vicar's Advice. - His Wife's Advice. - Medical Advice. -
Literary Advice. - George's Recommendation. - My Sister-in-Law's
Help. - Young Smith's Counsel. - My Own Ideas. - B.'s Idea.
I have been a good deal worried to-day about the question of what
luggage to take with me. I met a man this morning, and he said:
"Oh, if you are going to Ober-Ammergau, mind you take plenty of warm
clothing with you. You'll need all your winter things up there."
He said that a friend of his had gone up there some years ago, and
had not taken enough warm things with him, and had caught a chill
there, and had come home and died. He said:
"You be guided by me, and take plenty of warm things with you."
I met another man later on, and he said:
