Complete Works of Lewis Carroll (288 page)

BEGGAR CHILDREN

Before starting on a railway journey, for instance (and how delightful were railway journeys in the company of Lewis Carroll), he used to map out exactly every minute of the time that we were to take on the way.
The details of the journey completed, he would exactly calculate the amount of money that must be spent, and, in different partitions of the two purses that he carried, arrange the various sums that would be necessary for cabs, porters, newspapers, refreshments, and the other expenses of a journey.
It was wonderful how much trouble he saved himself
en route
by thus making ready beforehand.
Lewis Carroll was never driven half frantic on a station platform because he had to change a sovereign to buy a penny paper while the train was on the verge of starting.
With him journeys were always comfortable.

Of the joys that waited on a little girl who stayed with Lewis Carroll at his Oxford home I can give no better idea than that furnished by the diary that follows, which he wrote for me, bit by bit, during the evenings of one of my stays at Oxford.