hot, reeking waiting-room, were evidently
sincere.

When all the passeugei's had been slowly
emptied out of the steamer, and had ascended
to this upper-storey place of detention, the
"aliens" were penned up in one corner,
to give their names, and to receive from
two clerks their "certificates of arrival." In
complaining to you and to our fellow-victims
of a suffocating sensation, the alderman was
by no means singular. You were, luckily,
near the only practicable window; but my
end of the room was in a stifling condition,
and the supplications for air were general.
Even the stalwart Caspar gasped as if he were
breathing the sulphurs of the magic circle.
There were general cries of "How long is this
to last?"

"When are we to get our luggage?"

"When your names is called," replied the
porter, holding the door hermetically close.
The alderman produced his stop-watch. "We
landed," he remarked, "at ten minutes to
five o'clock—it is now a quarter past five, and
not a single name has been demanded!"

At length even the door-keeper's patience
was exhausted; and, in a fit of despair he
opened the door. A crowd immediately
jammed itself between its sides. The
affrighted porter rushed—as if he had undammed
a sluice—to the foot of the first flight of steps,
to stop the overflow. He held on by the two
bannisters like grim death, and opposed his
broad back to the torrent. Ladies screamed;
men exclaimed "Shame!" Presently, the
confusion confounded itself; for the crowd
became so tightly wedged into the doorway
and on the stairs, that it could not make any
sort of demonstration either by speech or
action. I pitied you, Swallow, most especially.
You had nobly resolved to fight your way to
the van in search of the widow's luggage;
and a creeping shiver came over me when I
beheld your round little form rasped and
grated against the brick wall, as if it had been
a nutmeg.

About this time a theory was propounded
by a nervous-looking clerk (who was
protected by an iron barrier in a door-way on
the first landing opposite to the crowd)
that all those who had single packages were
to be served first. The individuals who
immediately announced that each had
travelled from the Continent like an elephant,
with a single trunk, were curiously numerous.
But they might as well have boasted of
cartloads of luggage; because, except three ladies
of seven-package power, and the Contractor
for the twenty-eight from Paris (an old
stager), not a soul, whether of single
pretensions or not, could gain entrance to the
warehouse in which the baggage awaited
inspection. The single-to-do fiction was
therefore exploded, and the calling of names
commenced. At twenty-four minutes to six
(the alderman is my authority for this
precise datum) the fortunate owner of the
name of "Roots" was asked for. Mr. Roots,
planted in a remote recess of the waiting-
room, answered the call in a tone of good-
humoured mockery. Mr. Roots had as much
chance of wedging himself through the crowd,
as you, my poor Swallow, had of boring your
way through the brick wall. At this moment,
the Contractor, in a foaming state, appeared
on a platform of the warehouse, and frantically
invoked Monsieur le Docteur: Monsieur le
Docteur was delaying the luggage of all the
other members of the Contract, because he
had not delivered up his keys. Would any
one find Monsieur le Docteur, and entreat
Monsieur le Docteur to pitch over his keys?
But Monsieur le Docteur, although invisible,
managed to make himself heard. A
statement—proceeding apparently from a few
inches of sharp red nose thrust tightly through
a couple of closely-wedged shoulders in the
crowd, but really from the medical gentleman
behind it—was heard to the effect that his
(Monsieur le Docteur's) keys were indeed on
his person, but that he was quite unable to
get his hand into his own pocket without
special permission of his co-constituents of
the mob; who, with the best will in the world,
could not, by any means in their power,
contrive to accord it.

Time wore on, and you, Swallow, at length
attained to the front rank with your face
flattened against the beadle's broad back.
Several persons had been summoned by name;
but as they were perfectly unable to appear
in person by reason of the crowd, the
individuals nearest to the barrier and the beadle
were admitted, regardless of any other rule
than that of first come, first served;
consequently, two very rude and very strong
Frenchmen made their way in by coarsely
pushing aside the Cantab's sister and two
ladies from their own country.

It would be tedious to narrate all that
happened to me at the back of the crowd,
while you suffered in the front. When,
however, I at length struggled my way into
the place of search, I was glad to find that
you had not been much ground away; and
that a stratagem which I overheard you
divulging to the widow, succeeded in gaining
her admission also.

I appeal to you, Swallow, whether this
third scene of the farce did not present a
perfect contrast to that which was just over.
Here, in the Baggage Warehouse itself—in the
actual receipt of Custom—the ventilation and
deliberation were supreme. A fine view of the
river, seen through one of the open windows,
was being calmly enjoyed by a portly person,
evidently of considerable official pretensions.
A clerk, writing the reverse of a running-hand,
sat at a desk; another (who seemed, by the
jaunty style in which he wore his hat, to be
a dropper-in from some other department
of the Customs) leaned lazily against the
desk, enjoying the proceedings of the baffled,
heated, ladies and gentlemen who had escaped