PLANNING.
"What part of the diligence are we going to ride in, father?" asked
Rollo, as they were seated at dinner.
"In the coupe,"[A] said Mr. Holiday.
[Footnote A: Pronounced _coupay_.]
"Ah, father!" said Rollo; "I wish you would go on the banquette. We can
see so much better on the banquette."
"It would be rather hard climbing for mother," said Mr. Holiday, "to get
up to the banquette--such a long ladder."
"O, mother can get up just as easily as not," said Rollo. "Couldn't you,
mother?"
"I am more afraid about getting _down_ than getting up," said his
mother.
"But it is a great deal pleasanter on the banquette," said Rollo. "They
keep talking all the time--the conductor, and the drivers, and the other
passengers that are there; while in the coupe we shall be all by
ourselves. Besides, it is so much cheaper."
"It is cheaper, I know," said Mr. Holiday; "but then as to the talking,
I think we shall want to be quiet, and go to sleep if we can. You see it
will be night."
"Yes, father, that is true," said Rollo; "but I had rather hear them
talk. I can understand almost all they say. And then I like to see them
change horses, and to see the conductor climb up and down. Then,
besides, at almost all the villages they have parcels to leave at the
inns; and it is good fun to see them take the parcels out and toss them
down, and tell the bar maid at the inn what she is to do with them."
"All that must be very amusing," said Mr. Holiday; "but it would not be
so comfortable for your mother to mount up there. Besides, I have
engaged our places already in the coupe, and paid for them."
"Why, father!" said Rollo. "When did you do it?"
"I sent last evening," said Mr. Holiday. "It is necessary to engage the
places beforehand at this season. There is so much travelling into
Switzerland now that the diligences are all full. I had to send to three
offices before I could get places."
"Are there three offices?" asked Rollo.
"Yes," said his father; "there are three different lines.
"But I'll tell you what you may do, Rollo, if you please," continued his
father. "You may go to the bureau,[B] and see if you can exchange your
seat in the coupe for one in the banquette, if you think you would like
better to ride there. There may be some passenger who could not get a
place in the coupe, on account of my having taken them all, and who,
consequently, took one on the banquette, and would now be glad to
exchange, and pay the difference."
[Footnote B: Bureau is the French word meaning office; and English
people, when travelling in France, fall into the habit of using the word
in that sense.]
"How much would the difference be?" asked Rollo.
"I don't know," said Mr. Holiday; "five or six francs, probably. You
would save that sum by riding on the banquette, and you could have it to
buy something with in Geneva."
"Well, sir," said Rollo, joyfully, "I should like that plan very much."
"But do you think," said Mrs. Holiday, "that you know French enough to
explain it at the bureau, and make the change?"
"O, yes, mother," said Rollo; "I have no doubt I can."
So Rollo said he would finish his dinner as soon as he could, and go off
at once to the bureau.
"There is one other condition," said his father. "If I let you ride on
the banquette, and let you have all the money that you save for your
own, you must write a full account of your night's journey, and send it
to your cousin Lucy."
"Well, sir," said Rollo, "I will."
Rollo left the dinner table while his father and mother were taking
their coffee. The table was one of a number of separate tables arranged
along by the windows on the front side of a quaint and queer-looking
dining room--or _salle a manger_, as they call it--in one of the Lyons
inns. Indeed, the whole inn was very quaint and queer, with its old
stone staircases, and long corridors leading to the various apartments,
and its antique ceiling,--reminding one, as Mr. Holiday said, of the
inns we read of in Don Quixote and other ancient romances.
Rollo left his father and mother at this table, taking their coffee, and
sallied forth to find his way to the bureau of the diligence.
"If you meet with any difficulty," said Mr. Holiday, as Rollo went away,
"engage the first cab you see, and the cabman will take you directly
there for a franc or so."
"Yes, sir," said Rollo, "I will."
"And if you don't find any cab readily," continued his father, "engage a
commissioner to go with you and show you the way."
"Yes, sir," said Rollo.
A commissioner is a sort of porter who stands at the corners of the
streets in the French towns, ready to do any thing for any body that
calls upon him.
Rollo resolved not to employ either a cabman or a commissioner, if it
could possibly be avoided. He took the address of the bureau from his
father, and sallied forth.
He first went round the corner to a bookstore where he recollected to
have seen a map of Lyons hanging in the window. He looked at this map,
and found the street on it where he wished to go. He then studied out
the course which he was to take. Lyons stands at, or rather near, the
confluence of the two rivers Rhone and Saone. In coming to Lyons from
Paris, the party had come down the valley of the Saone; but now they
were to leave this valley, and follow up that of the Rhone to Geneva,
which is situated, as has already been said, on the Rhone, at the point
where that river issues from the Lake of Geneva.
The hotel where Rollo's father had taken lodgings was near the Saone;
and Rollo found that the bureau was on the other side of the town, where
it fronts on the Rhone.
So Rollo followed the course which he had marked out for himself on the
map. In a short time he saw before him signs of bridges and a river.
"Ah," says he to himself; "I am right; I am coming to the Rhone."
He went on, drawing nearer and nearer. At length he came out upon the
broad and beautiful quay, with large and elegant stone buildings on one
side of it, and a broad but low parapet wall on the other, separating
the quay from the water. There was a sidewalk along this wall, with many
people walking on it; and here and there men were to be seen leaning
upon the wall, and looking over at the boats on the river. The river was
broad, and it flowed very rapidly, as almost all water does which has
just come from Switzerland and the Alps. On looking up and down, Rollo
saw a great number of bridges crossing this stream, with teams and
diligences, and in one place a long troop of soldiers passing over. On
the other side, the bank was lined with massive blocks of stone
buildings. In a word, the whole scene presented a very bright and
animated spectacle to view.
Nearly opposite to the place where Rollo came out upon the river, he
saw, over the parapet wall that extended along on the outer side of the
quay, a very large, square net suspended in the air. It was hung by
means of ropes at the four corners, which met in a point above, whence
a larger rope went up to a pulley which was attached to the end of a
spar that projected from the stern of a boat. The net was slowly
descending into the water when Rollo first caught a view of it; so he
ran across, and looked over the parapet to see.
[Illustration: THE GREAT NET.]
The net descended slowly into the water. It was let down by men in the
boat paying out the line that held it.
"Ah," said Rollo to himself; "that's a curious way to rig a net. I
should like to stay and see them pull it up again, so as to see how many
fish they take; but business first and pleasure afterwards is the rule."
So he left the parapet, and walked along the quay towards the place
where the bureau was situated.
"I'll come back here," said he to himself, "when I have got my place on
the banquette, and see them fish a little while, if I find there is
time."
In a few minutes Rollo came to the place he was seeking. It was in a
little square, called Concert Place, opening towards the river. Rollo
knew the bureau by seeing the diligence standing before the door. It had
been brought up there to be ready for the baggage, though the horses
were not yet harnessed to it.
Rollo went into the office. He found himself in a small room, with
trunks and baggage arranged along on one side of it, and a little
enclosure of railings, with a desk behind it, on the other. There was a
young man sitting at this desk, writing.
"This must be a clerk, I suppose," said Rollo to himself.
Opposite to where the clerk was sitting there was a little opening in
the railings, for people to pay their money and take their tickets; for
people take tickets for places in the diligence, in Europe, just as they
do for the railroad. Rollo advanced to this opening, and, looking
through it, he stated his case to the clerk. He said that he had a place
in the coupe that his father had taken for him, but that he would rather
ride on the banquette, if there was room there, and if any body would
take his place in the coupe.
The clerk said that there had been a great many persons after a place in
the coupe since it had been taken, and that one lady had taken a place
on the banquette, because all the other places in the coach had been
engaged.
"I think," said the clerk, "that she will be very glad to exchange with
you, and pay you the difference. She lives not far from here, and if you
will wait a few minutes, I will send and see."
So the clerk called a commissioner who stood at the door, and after
giving him his directions, sent him away. In a few minutes the
commissioner returned, saying that the lady was very glad indeed to
exchange. He brought in his hand a five franc piece and three francs,
which was the difference in the price of the two places. The clerk gave
this money to Rollo, and altered the entry on his books so as to put
the lady in the coupe and Rollo on the banquette. Thus the affair was
all arranged.
Rollo found that it was now six o'clock. The diligence was not to set
out until half past seven; but by the rules of the service the
passengers were all to be on the spot, with their baggage, half an hour
before the time; so that Rollo knew that his father and mother would be
there at seven.
"That gives me just an hour," said he to himself; "so I shall have
plenty of time to go and see how they manage fishing with that big net."
He accordingly went to see the fishing, but was very careful to return
some minutes before the appointed time.
Rollo had a very pleasant ride that night to Geneva. He wrote a long and
full account of it afterwards, and sent it to his cousin Lucy. This
letter I shall give in the next chapter.
The reason why Rollo wrote so long an account of his journey was this:
that his father required him, when travelling, to spend one hour and a
half every day in study of some kind; and writing letters, or any other
intellectual occupation that was calculated to advance his education,
was considered as study. In consequence of this arrangement, Rollo was
never in a hurry to come to the end of his letters, for he liked the
work of writing them better than writing French exercises, or working on
arithmetic, or engaging in any of the other avocations which devolved
upon him when he had no letters on hand.