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Charles Dickens
The Uncommercial Traveller
Published by Good Press, 2019
EAN 4057664132475
Table of Contents
I HIS GENERAL LINE OF BUSINESS
IV TWO VIEWS OF A CHEAP THEATRE
VI REFRESHMENTS FOR TRAVELLERS
VIII THE GREAT TASMANIA’S CARGO
XIX SOME RECOLLECTIONS OF MORTALITY
XXII BOUND FOR THE GREAT SALT LAKE
XXIV AN OLD STAGE-COACHING HOUSE
XXV THE BOILED BEEF OF NEW ENGLAND
XXVII IN THE FRENCH-FLEMISH COUNTRY
XXVIII MEDICINE MEN OF CIVILISATION
XXXII A SMALL STAR IN THE EAST
XXXIII A LITTLE DINNER IN AN HOUR
XXXVII A PLEA FOR TOTAL ABSTINENCE
I
HIS GENERAL LINE OF BUSINESS
Allow me to introduce myself—first negatively.
No landlord is my friend and brother, no chambermaid loves me, no waiter worships me, no boots admires and envies me. No round of beef or tongue or ham is expressly cooked for me, no pigeon-pie is especially made for me, no hotel-advertisement is personally addressed to me, no hotel-room tapestried with great-coats and railway wrappers is set apart for me, no house of public entertainment in the United Kingdom greatly cares for my opinion of its brandy or sherry. When I go upon my journeys, I am not usually rated at a low figure in the bill; when I come home from my journeys, I never get any commission. I know nothing about prices, and should have no idea, if I were put to it, how to wheedle a man into ordering something he doesn’t want. As a town traveller, I am never to be seen driving a vehicle externally like a young and volatile pianoforte van, and internally like an oven in which a number of flat boxes are baking in layers. As a country traveller, I am rarely to be found in a gig, and am never to be encountered by a pleasure train, waiting on the platform of a branch station, quite a Druid in the midst of a light Stonehenge of samples.
And yet—proceeding now, to introduce myself positively—I am both a town traveller and a country traveller, and am always on the road. Figuratively speaking, I travel for the great house of Human Interest Brothers, and have rather a large connection in the fancy goods way. Literally speaking, I am always wandering here and there from my rooms in Covent-garden, London—now about the city streets: now, about the country by-roads—seeing many little things, and some great things, which, because they interest me, I think may interest others.
These are my chief credentials as the Uncommercial Traveller.
II
THE SHIPWRECK