Diary of a Pilgrimage | Page 5

giddy throngs of Barnet (though it is doubtful if anyone among them was half so giddy as was I) have I swung in highly-coloured car, worked by a man with a rope. I have trod in stately measure the floor of Kensington's Town Hall (the tickets were a guinea each, and included refreshments--when you could get to them through the crowd), and on the green sward of the forest that borders eastern Anglia by the oft-sung town of Epping I have performed quaint ceremonies in a ring; I have mingled with the teeming hordes of Drury Lane on Boxing Night, and, during the run of a high-class piece, I have sat in lonely grandeur in the front row of the gallery, and wished that I had spent my shilling instead in the Oriental halls of the Alhambra."
"There you are," said B., "that is just as good as yours; and you can write like that without going more than a few hours' journey from London."
"We will discuss the matter no further," I replied. "You cannot, I see, enter into my feelings. The wild heart of the traveller does not throb within your breast; you cannot understand his longings. No matter! Suffice it that I will come this journey with you. I will buy a German conversation book, and a check-suit, and a blue veil, and a white umbrella, and suchlike necessities of the English tourist in Germany, this very afternoon. When do you start?"
"Well," he said, "it is a good two days' journey. I propose to start on Friday."
"Is not Friday rather an unlucky day to start on?" I suggested.
"Oh, good gracious!" he retorted quite sharply, "what rubbish next? As if the affairs of Europe were going to be arranged by Providence according to whether you and I start for an excursion on a Thursday or a Friday!"
He said he was surprised that a man who could be so sensible, occasionally, as myself, could have patience to even think of such old-womanish nonsense. He said that years ago, when he was a silly boy, he used to pay attention to this foolish superstition himself, and would never upon any consideration start for a trip upon a Friday.
But, one year, he was compelled to do so. It was a case of either starting on a Friday or not going at all, and he determined to chance it.
He went, prepared for and expecting a series of accidents and misfortunes. To return home alive was the only bit of pleasure he hoped for from that trip.
As it turned out, however, he had never had a more enjoyable holiday in his life before. The whole event was a tremendous success.
And after that, he had made up his mind to ALWAYS start on a Friday; and he always did, and always had a good time.
He said that he would never, upon any consideration, start for a trip upon any other day but a Friday now. It was so absurd, this superstition about Friday.
So we agreed to start on the Friday, and I am to meet him at Victoria Station at a quarter to eight in the evening.

THURSDAY, 22ND

The Question of Luggage.--First Friend's Suggestion.--Second Friend's Suggestion.--Third Friend's Suggestion.--Mrs. Briggs' Advice.--Our Vicar's Advice.--His Wife's Advice.--Medical Advice.-- Literary Advice.--George's Recommendation.--My Sister-in-Law's Help.--Young Smith's Counsel.--My Own Ideas.--B.'s Idea.
I have been a good deal worried to-day about the question of what luggage to take with me. I met a man this morning, and he said:
"Oh, if you are going to Ober-Ammergau, mind you take plenty of warm clothing with you. You'll need all your winter things up there."
He said that a friend of his had gone up there some years ago, and had not taken enough warm things with him, and had caught a chill there, and had come home and died. He said:
"You be guided by me, and take plenty of warm things with you."
I met another man later on, and he said:
"I hear you are going abroad. Now, tell me, what part of Europe are you going to?"
I replied that I thought it was somewhere about the middle. He said:
"Well, now, you take my advice, and get a calico suit and a sunshade. Never mind the look of the thing. You be comfortable. You've no idea of the heat on the Continent at this time of the year. English people will persist in travelling about the Continent in the same stuffy clothes that they wear at home. That's how so many of them get sunstrokes, and are ruined for life."
I went into the club, and there I met a friend of mine--a newspaper correspondent--who has travelled a good deal, and knows Europe pretty well. I told him what my two other friends had said, and asked him which I was to believe. He said:
"Well, as a matter of fact,