| How we Fought the Wind from Montargis to Cosne | —“THE roads,” said I, “are better in France.” “You have ridden in France?” said J——, turning quick upon me with the most civil sarcasm in the world. “Strange!” quoth I, arguing the matter with him, “you have so little faith in cyclers that you cannot take their word for it.” “’Tis but a three hours’ journey to Calais and French roads,” said J——; “why not ride over them ourselves?” —So, giving up the argument, not many days later we put up our flannels and our ulsters, our “Sterne” and our “Baedeker,” a box of etching plates, and a couple of note-books—“Our old cycling suits,” said I, darning a few rents, “will do”—took our seats in a third-class railway carriage at Holborn Viaduct; and the Calais-Douvres sailing at half-past twelve that same morning, by two we were so incontestably in France, that a crowd of shouting, laughing, jesting, noisy Frenchmen in blue blouses were struggling up the gang-plank with the tricycle, which at Dover half the number of stolid Englishmen in green velveteen had delivered into the hands of the sailors.—But before we had set foot in the French dominions we had been treated by the French with an inhospitality which, had it not been for the sentiment of our proposed ride, would have made us forget the excellence of the roads beckoning us to its coast, and have sent us back in hot haste to England.——
“To pay a shilling tax for the privilege of landing in France,” cried J——, fresh from his “Sterne,” “by heavens, gentlemen, it is not well done! And much does it grieve me ’tis the lawgivers and taxmakers of a sister Republic whose people are renowned for courtesy and politeness, that I have thus to reason with.” —But I confess we were much worse treated by the English, who seemed as unwilling to lose our tricycle as the French were to receive us.—— “Eight shillings to carry it from London to Dover; ’tis no small price,” said J——, putting the change in his purse. “But fifteen from Dover to Calais, as much as we pay for our two tickets, tax and all, I tell you ’tis monstrous! To seize upon an unwary cycler going forth in search of good roads, and make him pay thus dearly for sport taken away from England——ungenerous!” —But we had scarce begun our sentimental journey.
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