DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.51521#0024
( i6 )
gers as well as for myself. A wretched crowd we were,
and right glad to see the grey mournful Thames and the
multitudinous city drawing out on a dark grey sky,
barely visible. The cry “Tickets, please; tickets, please”
was welcome. We were on Charing Cross Bridge and
everybody I am sure in that train hoped the bridge would
not break through by the weight of the train, for once
in the water there would be no chance of being saved.
These few lines will remind a good many of the terrors
of this passage, and the bleakness of the Charing Cross
Hotel was all we had to hope for. I ordered a bed and a
cup of chocolate but the chocolate brought was that pre-
paration of cocoa for which it is claimed that ‘An extra
spoonful will produce chocolate, ’ a lying device for which
I had the manager called up to explain. In the midst of
all this bleakness a note had to be written to Mr. Tinsley
and given to the porter, who was bribed with half-a-
crown to see that it was handed into Mr. Tinsley’s office
before ten o’clock, and this done I turned from the cocoa-
chocolate with nausea. Tea was preferable. We tire of
many things in life but I never heard of anybody tiring
of tea, and refreshed by a cup I slept for several hours
and arrived at Catherine Street, Strand, shortly after
three.
“I have come from France,” I said to the clerk. “I sent
a letter this morning from the Charing Cross Hotel to
Mr. Tinsley saying that I would call on him at three
gers as well as for myself. A wretched crowd we were,
and right glad to see the grey mournful Thames and the
multitudinous city drawing out on a dark grey sky,
barely visible. The cry “Tickets, please; tickets, please”
was welcome. We were on Charing Cross Bridge and
everybody I am sure in that train hoped the bridge would
not break through by the weight of the train, for once
in the water there would be no chance of being saved.
These few lines will remind a good many of the terrors
of this passage, and the bleakness of the Charing Cross
Hotel was all we had to hope for. I ordered a bed and a
cup of chocolate but the chocolate brought was that pre-
paration of cocoa for which it is claimed that ‘An extra
spoonful will produce chocolate, ’ a lying device for which
I had the manager called up to explain. In the midst of
all this bleakness a note had to be written to Mr. Tinsley
and given to the porter, who was bribed with half-a-
crown to see that it was handed into Mr. Tinsley’s office
before ten o’clock, and this done I turned from the cocoa-
chocolate with nausea. Tea was preferable. We tire of
many things in life but I never heard of anybody tiring
of tea, and refreshed by a cup I slept for several hours
and arrived at Catherine Street, Strand, shortly after
three.
“I have come from France,” I said to the clerk. “I sent
a letter this morning from the Charing Cross Hotel to
Mr. Tinsley saying that I would call on him at three