THE UNCOMMERCIAL TRAVELLER




CHAPTER 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.