Page:An American Girl in India.djvu/219

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THE TRIUMPH OF MR. ELGEE POTTS
209

the door to let us get in. Then dreadful, half-naked coolies clambered in to haul up our luggage, jabbering unintelligible things and letting in lots of nasty raw cold air. I got in first, and tried to make our belongings look as small as possible, while Berengaria superintended from the platform. It would not have been an easy task at the best of times to make Berengaria's trunks look small, but with at least one if not two pairs of eyes glaring at you with a glare that seemed to make you grow smaller and your luggage grow larger every moment, it was embarrassing in the extreme. Berengaria had insisted on bringing practically everything that would get through the doorway into the carriage with us.

'You will learn two things by experience when you have done a little more Indian travelling,' was all she had remarked, when I ventured a mild protest. 'The first and foremost is never by any chance to travel without a luncheon-basket, for you never know where you may get stranded, and India is no place for a hungry white man to be stranded in. The second is, never lose sight of your luggage if you have any desire for it to arrive with you at the end of the journey.'

So one after another those trunks and dressing-cases and hat boxes were handed in till the carriage seemed full of them, and it was a question how Berengaria was to get in at all. But she achieved it in the determined way she tackled most things, and by clambering up on to two big boxes she managed to shut the door behind her and the train