and now, with their tempers gone to the dogs, they must stand penned up and packed together, laden with wraps and satchels and shawl-straps, with the weary wife and babies, in the waiting-room, till the doors are thrown open—­and then all hands make a grand final rush to the train, find it full, and have to stand on the platform and fret until some more cars are put on.  They are in a condition to kill somebody by this time.  Meantime, you have been sitting in your car, smoking, and observing all this misery in the extremest comfort.

On the journey the guard is polite and watchful—­won’t allow anybody to get into your compartment—­tells them you are just recovering from the small-pox and do not like to be disturbed.  For the courier has made everything right with the guard.  At way-stations the courier comes to your compartment to see if you want a glass of water, or a newspaper, or anything; at eating-stations he sends luncheon out to you, while the other people scramble and worry in the dining-rooms.  If anything breaks about the car you are in, and a station-master proposes to pack you and your agent into a compartment with strangers, the courier reveals to him confidentially that you are a French duke born deaf and dumb, and the official comes and makes affable signs that he has ordered a choice car to be added to the train for you.

At custom-houses the multitude file tediously through, hot and irritated, and look on while the officers burrow into the trunks and make a mess of everything; but you hand your keys to the courier and sit still.  Perhaps you arrive at your destination in a rain-storm at ten at night—­you generally do.  The multitude spend half an hour verifying their baggage and getting it transferred to the omnibuses; but the courier puts you into a vehicle without a moment’s loss of time, and when you reach your hotel you find your rooms have been secured two or three days in advance, everything is ready, you can go at once to bed.  Some of those other people will have to drift around to two or three hotels, in the rain, before they find accommodations.

I have not set down half of the virtues that are vested in a good courier, but I think I have set down a sufficiency of them to show that an irritable man who can afford one and does not employ him is not a wise economist.  My courier was the worst one in Europe, yet he was a good deal better than none at all.  It could not pay him to be a better one than he was, because I could not afford to buy things through him.  He was a good enough courier for the small amount he got out of his service.  Yes, to travel with a courier is bliss, to travel without one is the reverse.