over the front of his theatre, and is deadly ill.
On Madame the act of brushing her lips with
the cup of the flask has had a much more plea-
sant effect; she no longer fears the motion of
the vessel; and, except when a roll of extra
power causes her to clasp my shoulder tightly,
she has her " sea legs" on, and maintains her
equilibrium excellently. She is good enough to
entertain me with elegant extracts from her
family history, and narrates how she was born
at Lyons, educated at Paris, married a professor
of the cooking art, who bore her to London;
how she is established as a milliner in our own
metropolis; how she finds her life there exces-
sively "triste;" and how rejoiced she is at the
holiday she is now about to spend in Paris,
under the convoy of her husband's brother—who
is seen in the distance sacrificing to Neptune.

This family history is only checked by our
arrival at Calais pier, between the two jet-
ties of which, we paddle slowly on, and is
brought to an abrupt termination by our fur-
ther arrival at the Calais quay, seen through
a drifting snow-storm which has just com-
menced. Here my importance is duly acknow-
ledged! No sooner do the illustrious cap
and crown gleam in the feeble lamplight, than
the shrieking, wrangling porters who have cast
themselves upon the boat and the luggage from
the moment we came alongside, burst forth into
a demoniac chorus of " Hé, donc! là, donc! v'là
M'sieu le Courier Anglais! Place là pour
M'sieu le Courier Anglais!" and I, Mr. the
English Courier, am handed up the treacherous,
sea-soaked, slippery ladder, first, of all the
Ondine's passengers. Her Britannic Majesty
possesses at Calais a mail-agent whose duty it
is to attend to the proper landing of the bags
and boxes, in the person of an old gentleman re-
markable for nothing but speaking the worst
French ever heard, so that Mr. the English Courier
has nothing to do but to follow the thin porter
who bears aloft his portmanteau, and to declare
to the innocence of its contents at the custom-
house. The custom-house officers are civil; they
merely repeat the phrase concerning the English
Courier, open the box, and immediately close it
again; but it is not until I enter the passport-
office that I know how great a man I really am.
He is there, that old man with the square, parch-
ment-skinned face, the skull-cap, the deep bass
voice, he, before whom I have trembled a score of
times, as with a searching glance through his
spectacles he asked me my name, my age, and
the place of my destination; and then, skimming
some sand over my passport, handed it to me as
though it were my death-warrant! But the cap
and crown have their charms even on him! He
looks at the passport, utters a guttural sound
which by a happy chance I divine to be intended
for my name, relieves me from the necessity of
mentioning my age before some twenty by-
standers by not hinting at the odious subject,
but boldly, though supergraphically, dashes at
my destination: "Pour Constantinople, m'sieu?"
"Non, m'sieu!" I reply, with a tinge of shame at
not being bound for the Golden Horn, "pour
Alexandrie et Le Caire." " Bien, m'sieu." Rha-
damanthus approves: "bon voyage!" This cour-
tesy overcomes me, and I take refuge in the
restaurant and a cup of bouillon.

This refection is half over (that is to say, I
have eaten the grease and am arriving at the
broth), when a gentleman hurries up to me, and
addressing me as Mr. the English Courier, in-
troduces himself as Mr. the French Courier and
my fellow-traveller and comrade. He is a portly
gentleman, of middle height, and middle age,
with a pleasant frank face, wearing the imperial
moustache and beard, and buttoned to the throat
in a tight frock-coat, on the breast of which is—
I need scarcely say—the ribbon of the Legion of
Honour. He orders a glass of brandy, and as
he sips it, tells me that our boat is much behind
its time, and that he fears we may miss the
Marseilles express: in which case we shall have
to take a special train and endeavour to catch it
on the road; then he politely conducts me to
the carriage which is to be our home for the
night. This carriage is a large van—perhaps
twelve feet long by six broad, and divided into
two compartments, in one of which I find my
mail-boxes already stowed away; the sides and
roof are painted a bright sky blue, which is well
known to be a good business colour, and one
which will bear rough usage; and though the
van was expressly built for the conveyance of
these mails, and has probably never been used for
any other purpose, on each side is a large inscrip-
tion, " Emplacement des Caisses"—place for the
mail-boxes. The other compartment, which is
seen through a doorway, over which hanging
curtains are looped back, seems, by contrast, a
perfect little bower, and it keeps up its character
on closer inspection. On either side is a
large, well-cushioned, broad, comfortable seat,
which would be a sofa for a dwarf, and affords a
pleasant lounge even for a person possessing the
length of limb allotted to the present writer;
the floor is covered with a fleecy rug; and on a
bracket screwed against the wall, stands a hand-
some moderator-lamp. After the dismal voyage,
the dank pier, and the solemn dreariness of the
custom-house and passport-office, there is a
warmth and cosiness in this little nook which is
inexpressibly reviving. When I am inducted
into its recesses by my new-found friend, who
does the honours with all the courtesy of a host,
for the first time since leaving home I ex-
perience a sensation of comfort.

With much shrieking and whistling; with
bows and "good journeys" from the attendant
porters, to whom I have administered drink-
money; with " God bless you," and other affec-
tionate wishes from the British mail-agent whom
I have never seen before, and may, perhaps,
never see again, and who yet addresses me as
his "boy," and bestows on me much paternal
affection; we start forth into the night. No
sooner are we in motion, than my comrade pro-
ceeds to make himself comfortable. As is the
case with all Frenchmen, his toilet is a sacred
mystery; but, far away in the dark recesses of
the other compartment amongst the quivering