One official weighed them; another obliged him to pay as
much in freight as for a third passenger, and gave him an illegible scrap
of paper which recorded their number and destination. The interpreter and
the porters took their fees with a professional effect of
dissatisfaction, and he went to wait with his wife amidst the smoking and
eating and drinking in the restaurant. They burst through with the rest
when the doors were opened to the train, and followed a glimpse of the
porter with their hand-bags, as he ran down the platform, still bent upon
escaping them, and brought him to bay at last in a car where he had got
very good seats for them, and sank into their places, hot and humiliated
by their needless tumult.
As they cooled, they recovered their self-respect, and renewed a youthful
joy in some of the long-estranged facts. The road was rougher than the
roads at home; but for much less money they had the comfort, without the
unavailing splendor, of a Pullman in their second-class carriage. Mrs.
March had expected to be used with the severity on the imperial railroads
which she had failed to experience from the military on the Hamburg
sidewalks, but nothing could be kindlier than the whole management toward
her.
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