But the trend of civilization to-day is that all these little interests are being quietly but very effectively crushed: we fling them beneath the wheels of railway trains and into the cogs of factories, with the result that only those experiences which are too large for us to fling thus are allowed to flourish. We have, in fact, almost cleared away the little things and left only the big. Now, if we turn the corner, either there is nothing at all or, in one case out of a hundred, we find the lion. In our railway travelling to-day, either nothing happens or there is a railway accident; but we have turned so many corners in our lives which led to the mere blankness of more empty road, that the possibility of the lion has almost faded from our minds--and so the sense of adventure in little, the true sense of adventure, is in danger of atrophy.
Some day, I feel sure that this sense of adventure will take a revenge on the civilization which would destroy it. We kill off birds and caterpillars flourish. Some worm lies near the heart of things ready to gnaw at the right moment. I fear that never will they apply "preservation laws" to the sense of adventure, or we, as adventurers, properly appreciated, should be in receipt of a scholarship or of a civil list pension.
We were too dazed by the drug of twenty hours of tedium and sleeplessness to suck any adventure from the passage through the French Customs House at Hendaye. But this experience roused us so that we were quite mentally awake by the time that we reached Irun. Here a problem confronted us.
We had in our large leather trunk a good many yards of government canvas, several pounds' worth of paints, and ten pounds in weight of preparation for turning the government canvas into material for painting upon. We had heard that the Spanish customs were very strict; very strict in theory, that is.
"But if they worry you, bribe them a bit," had said a friend. Were these things contraband? If so, how much was one to bribe, and how was one to do it? There are plenty of men with nerve enough to try to tip Charon for his trip over the Styx, but Jan is not one of these.
Now for a man of Jan's kind to attempt a delicate piece of palmed bribing often results in things worse than if he had left well alone. Ten to one there is a fumble and the coin drops to the floor beneath the nose of the chief bug-a-bug. So, fingering two unpleasantly warm five-peseta pieces in his pocket, he prayed fervently to kind Opportunity to step in.