32 OCCASIONAL HAPPY THOUGHTS. 



" O yes, if you like to go by it." 



I would like to go by it certainly, as it starts at 10.15 P-M., 

 and arrives at 12.30 at Folkestone ; and I do not object to be 

 booked as bales, cargo, or luggage. I will, if necessary, enter 

 myself as Mr. Bales, or Mr. Portmanteau. 



I take my ticket, and descend. 



Dodge that — making you take your ticket on shore before 

 you've seen the boat. It is not inviting. Packages and 

 boxes everywhere. Sloppy decks : barely room to walk, and 

 almost impossible to avoid puddles. Below, small, close, and 

 dull. Evidently it is 7iot intended for passengers, of whom 

 there are about half-a-dozen, and is intended for bales and 

 boxes, of which there are some hundreds. 



Down-stairs, I mean " below," clearly won't do for me, or 

 rather clearly would " do " for me effectually. This is where 

 the Passengers are. 



Happy Thought. — Stay on deck with the baggage. Being 

 for present purposes of freight merely a portmanteau, I will 

 stop with the portmanteaus. When with Romans be a 

 Roman. When with portmanteaus be a portmanteau. The 

 large white boxes are labelled (I see by the dim lantern light) 

 " Fragile. This side up." 



That's the next question for me. I am certainly Fragile, 

 on board a ship, and for the remainder of the direction I 

 decide upon lying down on the top of a carefully packed pile 

 of boxes, close to the Funnel. 



Happy Thought.— Almost central position on ship ; also 



