We took with us on this trip, besides my two boys who performed with me, a manager, a workman, also acting as servant, and my wife’s mother, who came partly for pleasure, and partly to help her daughter in her theatrical details. Galloping through Paris, we soon left the Faubourg and the Barrière St. Denis behind us. The weather was splendid--a perfect spring evening; my wife and I, with the children, were comfortably established in the coupé, and as it was Madame Robert-Houdin’s first journey, she was so delighted with it, that I believe, if I had then offered her the calculation of my presumed profits, she would probably have herself augmented it. For my own part, I was plunged in a delicious reverie. I recalled my journey with Torrini, and while giving a thought of regret to that excellent friend, I compared his carriage with my brilliant equipage, his modest claims on fortune with the magnificent prospects promised me; and I could not help yielding to a feeling of noble pride when I remembered I owed this position solely to my labor and to my energy. Then, finding myself freed from the annoyance of any theatrical administration, and my inventive ideas abandoned, I experienced an undefinable comfort, and were it not for the fear of making a pun, I would add, at this moment I was really transported. What would I have given to see myself thus bowling along in my own carriage! I fancied that the very passers-by regarded us with a certain degree of satisfaction; and in this infantile illusion I smiled upon them most benignantly. At some distance from the barrier we stopped. “Will you please to get out and have your carriage weighed? Here is the office.” “Before proceeding to weigh,” the receiver of the toll said, approaching me, “I warn you that I shall summons you for carrying a heavier weight than the law allows.” I could not appeal to my ignorance of this, for no one ought to be ignorant of the law; I therefore submitted philosophically enough to the threatened summons, and we soon recommenced our journey, laughing heartily at the incident. The shades of night began to cover the country when we reached the environs of Senlis. An old beggar, seeing us approaching, held out his hat; I understood this expressive gesture, and had the satisfaction of doing a clever trick and a good action at the same time; for I threw out a penny, which fell in his hat. I had hardly executed this adroit manœuvre, when cries of “Stop! stop!” reached my ear; and at the same time I saw the old man running panting after the carriage, and shouting. The postillion at length stopped the horses, and he was just in time--a few paces further on, and our heavy carriage would have been upset. The worthy beggar had perceived that one of our wheels was on the point of losing its tire, and as the old man in his haste had lost his coin, and was beginning to look for it, I spared him this trouble by giving him a five-franc piece.