His General Line of Business
Allow me to introduce myself - first negatively.
No landlord is my friend and brother, no chambermaid loves me, no waiter worships me,
no boots admires and envies me. No round of beef or tongue or ham is expressly cooked
for me, no pigeon-pie is especially made for me, no hotel-advertisement is personally
addressed to me, no hotel-room tapestried with great-coats and railway wrappers is set
apart for me, no house of public entertainment in the United Kingdom greatly cares for
my opinion of its brandy or sherry. When I go upon my journeys, I am not usually rated
at a low figure in the bill; when I come home from my journeys, I never get any
commission. I know nothing about prices, and should have no idea, if I were put to it,
how to wheedle a man into ordering something he doesn't want. As a town traveller, I am
never to be seen driving a vehicle externally like a young and volatile pianoforte van, and
internally like an oven in which a number of flat boxes are baking in layers. As a country
traveller, I am rarely to be found in a gig, and am never to be encountered by a pleasure
train, waiting on the platform of a branch station, quite a Druid in the midst of a light
Stonehenge of samples.
And yet - proceeding now, to introduce myself positively - I am both a town traveller and
a country traveller, and am always on the road. Figuratively speaking, I travel for the
great house of Human Interest Brothers, and have rather a large connection in the fancy
goods way. Literally speaking, I am always wandering here and there from my rooms in
Covent-garden, London - now about the city streets: now, about the country by-roads -
seeing many little things, and some great things, which, because they interest me, I think
may interest others.
These are my chief credentials as the Uncommercial Traveller.
