As we spent a good part of a day at Carlstad, I should, perhaps,
relate something more of the place than merely how we went to
the theatre there; but that delightful evening effaced all other
impressions, and after the interval that has since elapsed _Fleur
de The_ and our commissioner are the only things that have retained
somewhat of their original savor.
The railway from Stockholm to Christiania ceased at Carlstad on Lake
Wener, which gave us a day's drive to Arvika to strike the track
again; and while we stood consulting where we were to get carriages,
and whether we should go directly on, there came up a flourishing
specimen of the genus _valet de place_, who took possession of us and
laid out a plan that he had apparently prepared over night for our
especial benefit. It is a way those persons have, and one that gives
them a tremendous advantage over travelers weakened by a long journey,
that they act as if they were there by appointment to meet you, or as
if you had telegraphed precisely what you wished to do, and they were
merely carrying out your intentions. "You want to go to the Black
Eagle Hotel: I take you there. You would like to dine: you can have
dinner at the hotel, or I shall show you a nice restaurant." We had
not expected to find a member of the great European brotherhood just
there in a little town in the heart of Sweden, and, taken unawares,
fell an easy prey. However, they do not invariably succeed in that
way: sometimes, if their officiousness is excessive, their English
very exasperating and the traveler a little fractious as well as
tired, they get the tables turned on them.
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