I saw Zamiel (before I took wing) presented
to Compact Enchantress and Sister Artist, by
an officer in uniform, with a waist like a
wasp's, and pantaloons like two balloons.
They all got into the next carriage together,
accompanied by the two Mysteries. They
laughed. I am alone in the carriage (for I
don't consider Demented anybody) and alone
in the world.

Fields, windmills, low grounds, pollard-
trees,windmills, fields, fortifications, Abbeville,
soldiering and drumming. I wonder where
England is, and when I was there last—about
two years ago, I should say. Flying in and
out among these trenches and batteries,
skimming the clattering drawbridges, looking down
into the stagnant ditches, I become a prisoner
of state, escaping. I am confined with a
comrade in a fortress. Our room is in an upper
story. We have tried to get up the chimney,
but there's an iron grating across it, imbedded
in the masonry. After months of labour, we
have worked the grating loose with the poker,
and can lift it up. We have also made a hook,
and twisted our rugs and blankets into ropes.
Our plan is, to go up the chimney, hook our
ropes to the top, descend hand over hand upon
the roof of the guard-house far below, shake
the hook loose, watch the opportunity of the
sentinel's pacing away, hook again, drop into
the ditch, swim across it, creep into the shelter
of the wood. The time is come—a wild and
stormy night. We are up the chimney, we
are on the guard–house roof, we are swimming
in the murky ditch, when, lo! "Qui v'là?" a
bugle, the alarm, a crash! What is it? Death?
No, Amiens.

More fortifications, more soldiering and
drumming, more basins of soup, more little
loaves of bread, more bottles of wine, more
caraffes of brandy, more time for refreshment.
Everything good, and everything ready.
Bright, unsubstantial-looking, scenic sort of
station. People waiting. Houses, uniforms,
beards, moustaches, some sabots, plenty of neat
women, and a few old-visaged children. Unless
it be a delusion born of my giddy flight, the
grown-up people and the children seem to
change places in France. In general, the boys
and girls are little old men and women, and
the men and women lively boys and girls.

Bugle, shriek, flight resumed. Monied
Interest has come into my carriage. Says the
manner of refreshing is "not bad," but
considers it French. Admits great dexterity and
politeness in the attendants. Thinks a decimal
currency may have something to do with their
despatch in settling accounts, and don't know
but what it's sensible and convenient. Adds,
however, as a general protest, that they're a
revolutionary people—and always at it.

Ramparts, canals, cathedral, river, soldiering
and drumming, open country, river,
earthenware manufactures, Creil. Again ten
minutes. Not even Demented in a hurry.
Station, a drawing-room with a verandah:
like a planter's house. Monied Interest
considers it a bandbox, and not made to last.
Little round tables in it, at one of which the
Sister Artists and attendant Mysteries are
established with Wasp and Zamiel, as if they
were going to stay a week.

Anon, with no more trouble than before, I
am flying again, and lazily wondering as I
fly. What has the South Eastern done with
all the horrible little villages we used to pass
through, in the Diligence? What have they
done with all the summer dust, with all the
winter mud, with all the dreary avenues of little
trees, with all the ramshackle postyards, with
all the beggars (who used to turn out at night
with bits of lighted candle, to look in at the
coach windows), with all the long-tailed horses
who were always biting one another, with all
the big postilions in jack-boots—with all the
mouldy cafés that we used to stop at, where a
long mildewed tablecloth, set forth with jovial
bottles of vinegar and oil, and with a Siamese
arrangement of pepper and salt, was never
wanting? Where are the grass-grown little
towns, the wonderful little market–places all
unconscious of markets, the shops that nobody
kept, the streets that nobody trod, the
churches that nobody went to, the bells that
nobody rang, the tumble-down old buildings
plastered with many–colored bills that nobody
read? Where are the two-and-twenty weary
hours of long long day and night journey,
sure to be either insupportably hot or
insupportably cold? Where are the pains in my
bones, where are the fidgets in my legs, where
is the Frenchman with the nightcap who
never would have the little coupé-window
down, and who always fell upon me when he
went to sleep, and always slept all night
snoring onions?

A voice breaks in with "Paris! Here we
are!"

I have overflown myself, perhaps, but I
can't believe it. I feel as if I were enchanted
or bewitched. It is barely eight o'clock yet—
it is nothing like half-past—when I have had
my luggage examined at that briskest of
Custom-Houses attached to the station, and
am rattling over the pavement in a Hackney
cabriolet.

Surely, not the pavement of Paris? Yes,
I think it is, too. I don't know any other
place where there are all these high houses,
all these haggard-looking wine shops, all these
billiard tables, all these stocking-makers with
flat red or yellow legs of wood for sign-
board, all these fuel shops with stacks of
billets painted outside, and real billets sawing
in the gutter, all these dirty corners of streets,
all these cabinet pictures over dark doorways
representing discreet matrons nursing babies.
And yet this morning—I'll think of it in a
warm-bath.

Very like a small room that I remember in
the Chinese Baths upon the Boulevard,
certainly; and, though I see it through the
steam, I think that I might swear to that
peculiar hot-linen-basket, like a large wicker