The visitors were conducted twenty at a time to the end on a sort of trolley or benches on wheels drawn by a couple of men. In the centre of the tunnel a kind of saloon, decorated with flowers and evergreens, was arranged, and, on a large table, glasses and biscuits, etc., were spread for the inevitable luncheon. There was no infiltration of water in any part. In the places where several small fissures and slight oozings had appeared during the boring operations, a shield in sheet iron had been applied against the wall by the engineer, following all the circumference of the gallery and making it completely watertight. There they were as in a drawing-room, and the ladies having descended in all the glories of silks and lace and feathers were astonished to find themselves as immaculate on their return as at the beginning of their trip. The atmosphere in the tunnel was not less pure, but even fresher than outside, thanks to the compressed air machine which, having acted on the excavator at the beginning of the cutting, released its cooled air in the centre of the tunnel. With the widespread talk of champagne under the sea, potted plants flourishing under the electric lights, and bracing breezes blowing within the Lower Chalk, going down from London to attend one of Sir Edward's tunnel parties seems to have become one of the fashionable things to do in English society in the early part of 1882. By the beginning of spring, visitors taken down into the tunnel and entertained by Sir Edward included such eminent figures as the Lord Mayor of London, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and the Prince and Princess of Wales. To judge by this stage of affairs, the boring of the tunnel was going on under the most agreeable of auspices.