nd hastily quitting the apartment and paying for it, I
was very soon in the railway station. My trunks were weighed, and I
bought baggage tickets to Paris--price one sou. The first class fare was
twenty-seven francs, or about five dollars, the distance one hundred and
seventy miles. This was cheaper than first class railway traveling in
England, though somewhat dearer than American railway prices.

The first class cars were the finest I have seen in any country--very
far superior to American cars, and in many respects superior to the
English. They were fitted up for four persons in each compartment, and a
door opened into each from the side. The seat and back were beautifully
cushioned, and the arms were stuffed in like manner, so that at night
the weary traveler could sleep in them with great comfort.

The price of a third class ticket from Boulogne to Paris was only three
dollars, and the cars were much better than the second class in America,
and I noticed that many very respectably dressed ladies and gentlemen
were in them--probably for short distances. It is quite common, both in
England and France, in the summer, for people of wealth to travel by
rail for a short distance by the cheapest class of cars.

I entered the car an utter stranger--no one knew me, and I knew no one.
The language was unintelligible, for I found that to _read_ French in
America, is not to _talk_ French in France. I could understand no one,
or at least but a word here and there.

But the journey was a very delightful one. The country we passed through
was beautiful, and the little farms were in an excellent state of
cultivation. Flowers bloomed everywhere. There was not quite that degree
of cultivation which the traveler observes in the best parts of England,
but the scenery was none the less beautiful for that. Then, too, I saw
everything with a romantic enthusiasm. It was the France I had read of,
dreamed of, since I was a school-boy.

A gentleman was in the apartment who could talk English, having resided
long in Boulogne, which the English frequent as a watering place, and he
pointed out the interesting places on our journey. At Amiens we changed
cars and stopped five minutes for refreshments. I was hungry enough to
draw double rations, but I felt a little fear that I should get cheated,
or could not make myself understood; but as the old saw has it,
"Necessity is the mother of invention," and I satisfied my hunger with a
moderate out