Then there was nothing for me to do but go back to the
station and renew my attempt on the inspector, who still remained proof
against me. What added to the hardship of the situation was that it was
Italy at one end of the station and France at the other, and in one
extremity it was an hour earlier than it was at the other, by the time
of Central Europe at the east and by the time of Paris at the west, so
that I do not know but we were two hours and forty minutes at
Ventimiglia instead of one hour and forty minutes. Of this period little
could be employed at tea, and we were not otherwise hungry; we could
give something of our interminable leisure to counting our baggage and
suffering unfounded alarms at failing to make it come out right, but we
could not give much.
The weather had turned chilly, the long station was full of draughts,
and the invalid of the party, without whom no American party is
perfectly national, was rapidly taking cold. We were quite incredulous
when the examination actually began, but at last it really did, and it
began with our pieces, with such a show of favoring us on the
inspector's part, that when it was over, in about two minutes, one trunk
serving as a type of the innocence of all, I furtively held up a piece
of five francs in recognition of his kindness.
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