"All are for London in this compartment? Thank you."
To the third-class: "Now, then, tickets. Look alive here, will you?"
The first-class passenger finds that his wants are better attended to, his questions answered deferentially; he is allowed to take almost any amount of small luggage into the car with him, much of which would be excluded from the second-class, if an attempt were made to carry it in. And O, the potency of the English shilling!
Each car seats eight; but we will suppose that there are a party of four travelling together, and desire no more passengers in the compartments. Call the guard to the window, put your hand in your pocket, looking him in the eye significantly. He will carelessly drop his own hand within the window opening inside the car. You drop a shilling in the hand. "This car is occupied."
Touching his hat, he locks the car door, and when other people come trying the door, he is conveniently out of the way, or informs the applicant, "Third carriage forward for London, sir," and by a dozen ingenious subterfuges keeps you free from strangers, so much that you betray yourself to him as an American by giving him another shilling at your journey's end; and, although smoking "is strictly forbidden in first-class carriages," a party of three or four smokers, by the judicious use of a couple of shillings, may have one all to themselves for that purpose.
The railway stations in England are very fine, and much superior to those in America, although we are improving ours, especially in the great cities. In the great English cities and towns, the stations are vast iron, glass-roofed structures, kept in excellent order. The waiting-rooms are divided into first, second, and third class, and the door opening upon the platform is not opened until a certain time before the train starts. Porters in uniform take the luggage to the train, and the "guard" who acts as conductor knows nothing about any railway train connections or line beyond his own. The passenger is supposed to know all that sort of thing, and he who "wants to know, you know," is at once recognized as an American.
The country stations are beautiful little rustic affairs, with gardens of roses and sweetbrier, honeysuckles and flowering shrubs about them. Some have the name of the station sown in dwarf flowers upon the bank outside, presenting a very pretty appearance in spring and summer, and contrasting very agreeably with the rude shanties we find in America, with their tobacco-stained floors within, and bare expanse of yellow sand outside.