Mantalini would have put
it, "is demnition moist and unpleasant," whilst a few feet away, a
grey-haired traveller is basking in the hot sunshine of a white coral
strand, with the cocoa-nut palms overhead whispering their endless
secrets to each other as they toss their emerald-green fronds in the
strong Trade winds, the little blue wavelets of the Caribbean Sea
lap-lapping as they pretend to break on the gleaming milk-white beach.
It is really an ideal form of travel! No discomforts, no hurryings to
catch connections, no passports required, no passage money, and no
hotel bills! What more could any one ask? The journeys can be varied
indefinitely, provided that the owner of the storehouse has been
careful to keep its shelves tidily arranged. India? The second shelf
on the left. South Africa? The one immediately below it. Canada?
South America? The West Indies? There they all are, each one in its
proper place!
This private Thomas Cook & Son's office has the further advantage of
being eminently portable. Wherever its owner goes, it goes, too. For
the elderly this seems the most practical form of Travel Bureau, and
it is incontestably the most economical one in these days when prices
soar sky-high.
There is so much to see in this world of ours, and just one short
lifetime in which to see it! I am fully conscious of the difficulty of
conveying to others impressions which remain intensely vivid to
myself, and am also acutely alive to the fact that matters which
appear most interesting to one person, drive others to martyrdoms of
boredom.
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