wait at the closed gates of the pier and watch these two outward-bound
expresses arrive. After a shriek, prolonged and sustained, the great
trains from Victoria and Ludgate, which met on the way and became one,
come thundering on, the enormous and powerful engine glaring fiercely,
flashing its lamps, and making the pier tremble. Compartment after
compartment of first-class carriages flit by, each lit up so
refulgently as to show the crowded passengers, with their rugs and
bundles dispersed about them. It is a curious change to see the
solitary pier, jutting out into the waves, all of a sudden thus
populated with grand company, flashing lights, and saloon-like
splendour--ambassadors, it may be, generals for the seat of war, great
merchants like the Rothschilds, great singers or actors, princes,
dukes, millionnaires, orators, writers, 'beauties,' brides and
bridegrooms, all ranged side by side in those cells, or _vis-à-vis_.
That face under the old-fashioned travelling-cap may be that of a
prime minister, and that other gentlemanly person a swindling
bank-director flying from justice.

During the more crowded time of the travelling season it is not
undramatic, and certainly entertaining, to stand on the deck of the
little boat, looking up at the vast pier and platform some twenty or
thirty feet above one's head, and see the flood of passengers
descending in ceaseless procession; and more wonderful still, the
baggage being hurled down the 'shoots.' On nights of pressure this may
take nearly an hour, and yet not a second appears to be lost. One
gazes in wonder at the vast brass-bound chests swooping down and
caught so deftly by the nimble mariners; the great black-domed ladies'
dress-baskets and boxes; American and French trunks, each with its
national mark on it. Every instant the pile is growing. It seems like
building a mansion with vast blocks of stone piled up on each other.