text:  We now laugh at our slow-moving forefathers but is not the time coming when our thirty miles an hour will be laughed at as much as their five? when our passage from Calais to Dover will be made by the turn of a winch and Paris will be within the penny-post delivery? when the balloon will carry our letters and ourselves; until that still more rapid period when we shall ride on cannon-shot and make but a stage from London to Pekin? On the roof of the coach I found a strong-featured and closely wrapped-up man who by degrees performed the part of my cicerone