“What is the cheapest kind of tickets you have, if you please?” I inquired, with the canvas bag in my hand.

“Third class,” said the young man, staring very hard at me, which I thought rather rude.  “Except working men’s tickets, and they’re not for this train.”

“Two third-class tickets for Victoria Dock, then, if you please,” said I.

“Single or return?” said he.

“I beg your pardon?” I said, for I was puzzled.

“Are you coming back to-day?” he inquired.

“Oh dear, no!” said I, for some of the captain’s voyages had lasted for years; but the question made me anxious, as I knew nothing of railway rules, and I added, “Does it matter?”

“Not by no means,” replied the young man smartly, and he began to whistle, but stopped himself to ask, “Custom House or Tidal Basin?”

I had no alternative but to repeat “I beg your pardon?”

He put his face right through the hole and looked at me.  “Will you take your ticket for Custom House or Tidal Basin?” he repeated; “either will do for Victoria Docks.”

“Then whichever you please,” said I, as politely as I could.

The young man took out two tickets and snapped them impatiently in something; and as a fat woman was squeezing me from behind, I was glad to take what I could get and go back to Fred.

He was taking care of our two bundles and the empty pie-dish.

That pie-dish was a good deal in our way.  Fred wanted to get rid of it, and said he was sure his mother would not want us to be bothered with it; but Fred had promised in his letter to bring it back, and he could not break his word.  I told him so, but I said as he did not like to be seen with it I would carry it.  So I did.

With a strong breeze aft, we were driven up-stairs in the teeth of a gale, and ran before a high wind down a platform where, after annoying one of the railway men very much by not being able to guess which was the train, and having to ask him, we got in among a lot of rough-looking people, who were very civil and kind.  A man with a black face and a white jacket said he would tell us when we got to Custom House, and he gave me his seat by the window, that I might look out.

What struck me as rather odd was that everybody in the third-class carriage seemed to have bundles like ours, and yet they couldn’t all be running away.  One thin woman with a very troublesome baby had three.  Perhaps it is because portmanteaus and things of that sort are rather expensive.

Fred was opposite to me.  It was a bright sunny morning, a fresh breeze blew, and in the sunlight the backs of endless rows of shabby houses looked more cheerful than usual, though very few of the gardens had anything in them but dirt and cats, and very many of the windows had the week’s wash hanging out on strings and poles.  The villages we had passed on the canal banks all looked pretty and interesting, but I think that most of the places we saw out of the window of the train would look very ugly on a dull day.