“Time to take the train, sir.”

“Not going to take any train.”

“Ain’t your name Smith?”

“Yes.”

“Well, Smith”—­

“I left no order to be called.” (Indistinct grumbling from Smith’s room.)

Porter is heard shuffling slowly off down the passage.  In a little while he returns to Smith’s door, evidently not satisfied in his mind.  Rap, rap, rap!

“Well, what now?”

“What’s your initials?  A. T.; clear out!”

And the porter shambles away again in his slippers, grumbling something about a mistake.  The idea of waking a man up in the middle of the night to ask him his “initials” was ridiculous enough to banish sleep for another hour.  A person named Smith, when he travels, should leave his initials outside the door with his boots.

Refreshed by this reposeful night, and eager to exchange the stagnation of the shore for the tumult of the ocean, we departed next morning for Baddeck by the most direct route.  This we found, by diligent study of fascinating prospectuses of travel, to be by the boats of the International Steamship Company; and when, at eight o’clock in the morning, we stepped aboard one of them from Commercial Wharf, we felt that half our journey and the most perplexing part of it was accomplished.  We had put ourselves upon a great line of travel, and had only to resign ourselves to its flow in order to reach the desired haven.  The agent at the wharf assured us that it was not necessary to buy through tickets to Baddeck,—­he spoke of it as if it were as easy a place to find as Swampscott,—­it was a conspicuous name on the cards of the company, we should go right on from St. John without difficulty.  The easy familiarity of this official with Baddeck, in short, made us ashamed to exhibit any anxiety about its situation or the means of approach to it.  Subsequent experience led us to believe that the only man in the world, out of Baddeck, who knew anything about it lives in Boston, and sells tickets to it, or rather towards it.

There is no moment of delight in any pilgrimage like the beginning of it, when the traveler is settled simply as to his destination, and commits himself to his unknown fate and all the anticipations of adventure before him.  We experienced this pleasure as we ascended to the deck of the steamboat and snuffed the fresh air of Boston Harbor.  What a beautiful harbor it is, everybody says, with its irregularly indented shores and its islands.  Being strangers, we want to know the names of the islands, and to have Fort Warren, which has a national reputation, pointed out.  As usual on a steamboat, no one is certain about the names, and the little geographical knowledge we have is soon hopelessly confused.  We make out South Boston very plainly:  a tourist is looking at its warehouses through his opera-glass, and telling his boy about a recent fire there.  We find out afterwards that it was East Boston.  We pass to the stern of the boat for a last look at Boston itself; and while there we have the pleasure of showing inquirers the Monument and the State House.  We do this with easy familiarity; but where there are so many tall factory chimneys, it is not so easy to point out the Monument as one may think.