"Major here's Old Moore's Almanack with the
hieroglyphic complete, for your opinion."

It took the Major a little longer to read than
I should have thought, judging from the copious
flow with which he seemed to be gifted when
attacking the organ-men, but at last he got
through it and stood a gazing at me in amazement.

"Major" I says " you're paralysed."

"Madam" says the Major, "Jemmy Jackman
is doubled up."

Now it did so happen that the Major had
been out to get a little information about
railroads and steam-boats, as our boy was coming
home for his Midsummer holidays next day and
we were going to take him somewhere for a
treat and a change. So while the Major stood
a gazing it came into my head to say to him
"Major I wish you'd go and look at some of your
books and maps, and see whereabouts this same
town of Sens is in France."

The Major he roused himself and he went
into the Parlours and he poked about a little,
and he came back to me and lie says: "Sens
my dearest madam is seventy odd miles south
of Paris."

With what I may truly call a desperate effort
"Major" I says "we'll go there with our
blessed boy!"

If ever the Major was beside himself it was
at the thoughts of that journey. All day long
he was like the wild man of the woods after
meeting with an advertisement in the papers
telling him something to his advantage, and
early next morning hours before Jemmy could
possibly come home he was outside in the street
ready to call out to him that we was all a going
to France. Young Rosy-cheeks you may
believe was as wild as the Major, and they did
carry on to that degree that I says "If you two
children ain't more orderly I'll pack you both
off to bed." And then they fell to cleaning up
the Major's telescope to see France with, and
went out and bought a leather bag with a snap
to hang round Jemmy, and him to carry the
money like a little Fortunatus with his purse.

If I hadn't passed my word and raised their
hopes, I doubt if I could have gone through with
the undertaking but it was too late to go back
now. So on the second day after Midsummer
Day we went off by the morning mail. And
when we came to the sea which I had never
seen but once in my life and that when my poor
Lirriper was courting me, the freshness of it
and the deepness and the airiness and to think
that it had been rolling ever since and that it
was always a rolling and so few of us minding,
made me feel quite serious. But I felt happy
too and so did Jemmy and the Major and not
much motion on the whole, though me with a
swimming in the head and a sinking but able to
take notice that the foreign insides appear to
be constructed hollower than the English, leading
to much more tremenjous noises when bad
sailors.

But my dear the blueness and the lightness
and the coloured look of everything and the very
sentry-boxes striped and the shining rattling
drums and the little soldiers with their waists
and tidy gaiters, when we got across to the
Continentit made me feel as if I don't know
what—as if the atmosphere had been lifted off
me. And as to lunch why bless you if I kept a
man-cook and two kitchen-maids I couldn't get it
done for twice the money, and no injured young
women a glaring at you and grudging you and
acknowledging your patronage by wishing that
your food might choke you, but so civil and so
hot and attentive and every way comfortable
except Jemmy pouring wine down his throat by
tumblers-full and me expecting to see him drop
under the table.

And the way in which Jemmy spoke his
French was a real charm. It was often wanted
of him, for whenever anybody spoke a syllable to
me I says "Noncomprenny, you're very kind
but it's no use—Now Jemmy!" and then
Jemmy he fires away at 'em lovely, the only
thing wanting in Jemmy's French being as it
appeared to me that he hardly ever understood
a word of what they said to him which made it
scarcely of the use it might have been though
in other respects a perfect Native, and regarding
the Major's fluency I should have been of
the opinion judging French by English that
there might have been a greater choice of words
in the language though still I must admit that
if I hadn't known him when he asked a
military gentleman in a grey cloak what o'clock it
was I should have took him for a Frenchman
born.

Before going on to look after my Legacy we
were to make one regular day in Paris, and I
leave you to judge my dear what a day that was
with Jemmy and the Major and the telescope
and me and the prowling young man at the inn
door (but very civil too) that went along with us
to show the sights. All along the railway to Paris
Jemmy and the Major had been frightening
me to death by stooping down on the platforms
at stations to inspect the engines underneath
their mechanical stomachs, and by creeping in
and out I don't know where all, to find improvements
for the United Grand Junction Parlour,
but when we got out into the brilliant streets
on a bright morning they gave up all their
London improvements as a bad job and gave
their minds to Paris. Says the prowling young
man to me "Will I speak Inglis No?" So I
says "If you can young man I shall take it as
a favour," but after half an hour of it when I
fully believed the man had gone mad and me too
I says "Be so good as fall back on your French
sir," knowing that then I shouldn't have the
agonies of trying to understand him which was
a happy release. Not that I lost much more
than the rest either, for I generally noticed that
when he had described something very long
indeed and I says to Jemmy "What does he
say Jemmy?" Jemmy says looking at him with
vengeance in his eye "He is so jolly
indistinct!" and that when he had described it
longer all over again and I says to Jemmy
"Well Jemmy what's it all about?" Jemmy