iron mail-boxes, I discern him denuding
himself of his shining boots, and donning easy
slippers, casting aside the tight buttoned coat
and replacing it by a loose gaberdine, running a
pocket-comb through the Napoleonic beard, and
finally fixing the well-fitting wig. When he
reappears, and is again within the focus of the
garish eye of the moderator, he drags with him
a curious looking bundle, which he leaves on
the confines of outer darkness, and bears in
one hand a Lyons sausage: in the other, a bottle
of Médoc. Bidden to his hospitable board, I
propose a pic-nic, and produce from my own
portmanteau a cold fowl and some sherry; we
have no knives nor forks, and no glasses, but the
fowl is tender, and recollecting an old German
student experience, I indoctrinate my
companion into the right method of taking a long
and deep " schlug," or draught, from the mouth
of the bottle, which at once establishes me in
his good opinion. Supper over, we each light
pipes, and my friend exhibits, in the curious-
looking bundle, a perfect well of sheepskin with
the wool inside, in which he steeps himself to
the waist, looping the end over his head. The
night is bitter cold, and I heap all my rugs round
me, and sit peacefully smoking, wondering how
long ago it is since I left home, and watching
Mr. the French Courier, whose pipe gradually
slips from between his lips, whose beard spreads
out into a shapeless fan under the pressure of
his fallen chin, and who is soon fast asleep.

So, on through the dark night we rush: I in
a state of semi-excitement through the novelty of
my situation, of semi-somnolence through my extra
fatigue, dropping off into vague sleep-snatchings
from which I am aroused by sudden stoppages
of the train, by lamp-flittings, foot-patterings,
and demoniac shouts of foreign names, rendered
doubly frightful by prolonged howling and rapid
iteration. He is a bold man who, roused
from an unquiet sleep, can look upon a Judas-
like bearded face at his carriage window, and
listen to a yell of " Dou-ai! " or " Ar-ras! " in
the dead of night, without fear and trembling!
So, on through the leaden dawn of morning, when
I rouse myself, cold, numbed, and unrefreshed,
with a horrible consciousness of dirt and travel-
stains and unkempt hair, and blear through the
clouded window at flitting white-faced stations,
sat shivering blouse-bedecked pointsmen, at the
whole tribe of guards, porters, and wheel-
greasers who come like shadows and so depart,
leaving me, my slumbering comrade and my
seventy-eight clattering, rocking, self-bruising
mail-boxes as the only entities in this phantom
journey. So, on through the growing light
and sunshine, through rapidly increasing suburbs
and places known to me in old times as holiday
resorts and good localities for outside the
barrier fêtes, past Franconville, Ermont, Enghien,
Epinay, past Saint-Denis, where at Easter and
Whitsuntide so many even to the present day
disport themselves without their heads, in laudable
imitation of the presiding genius of the
place, until, with a protracted scream which
awakes my companion and brings him in an
instant to his bearings in the matter of dress
and equipment, we rattle into Paris.

Agitel lil Shaitan—Hurry is the Devil's—says
the Arabic proverb; to which I firmly subscribe,
when I find that my stay in my much-beloved
Paris is not to exceed half an hour; when I find
that the wheels of our travelling-van have no
sooner ceased revolving than the door is thrown
open, and a stalwart lithe-limbed porter in a
blue blouse, springs upon the outworks of the
mail-boxes, and, after a rapid greeting of " Good
morning, Mr. the Couriers," commences hurling
chest after chest into the arms of a similarly-at-
tired individual, who in his turn transfers them to
a third, who deposits them in a magic circle round
him on the ground. My comrade and I squeeze
through the door and past the flying boxes, and
count each off, as it whirls from the nimble hands
of Eugène, brushes against the broad breast of
Adolphe, and is finally received into the out-spread
arms of Pierre. To us, presents himself a man
of great authority, dressed in sombre and official
black, but whose dignity is somewhat lowered by
his wearing a schoolboy's round cap, who, with
many gesticulations and few words, informs us
that we have missed the regular Marseilles
express, but that a special train is in waiting at
the other terminus, and that if we hurry we
may overtake the fugitives at the station, where
they stop for dinner. The tale of the boxes is
complete and verified, I have rewarded Eugène
and Adolphe with " for-drink" money, and am
pressing francs into the waving hands of Pierre,
who is telegraphing maniacally to some distant
object. It approaches: a yellow waggon on
springs, driven by a man in jack-boots, with a
shiny hat and a red cockade, and drawn by
four splendid wild grey horses. With a volley of
execrations of such strength that they seem to
rattle against his teeth as they rush put of his
mouth, the driver brings his plunging, kicking
team round to the side of the train, and in
almost less time than it takes to write, Eugène,
Pierre, and Adolphe, supplemented by others
who have joined us at the arrival of the waggon,
have flung into it the seventy-eight mail-boxes,
piling them one on the other in reckless
confusion; have pitched me on to a small wooden
seat immediately inside the door; have assisted
my comrade to clamber up beside the driver; and
are seen in the distance in paroxysms of cour-
teous bows. The horses, urged to the top of
their speed, rattle at a tremendous pace through
the streets, gazed after and cursed by the
scattered population, and the waggon is so swung
and jolted and banged about, that to remain on
my seat is impossible, and I consequently fall
on my knees, in the midst of a shower of mail-
boxes which descends around me. Pressing my
back firmly against the foremost pile, and
spreading out my arms to the widest extent,
to restrain all I can from falling, jerked off my
balance at every rut, and suffering from
temporary concussions of the brain at two-minute
intervals, I am not sorry when, with one final
bang, we grate up against the portico of the
terminus on the Boulevard Mazas.