not, dared not, take in my little miserable
Coli, which, by this time, I began to look
upon with loathing unutterable.

As I was retracing my steps to the hotel in
despair, he called after me, and gave me to
understand, that though he couldn't take the
parcel at the office, it was probable, if I
went down to the railway station half an
hour before the train started, I might prevail
on the chef to send it for me; "though," he
added "it is quite contrary to the regulations."
The train started at six o'clock in the morning.
The station was outside the ramparts. In order
to be there at half-past five, it was necessary
for me to get up at half-past four at farthest.
Could I depend on the servants to call me?
Alas, experience answered sharply and
decisively, No!—I knew how often I had been
"marked" for six and called at nine—not by
the waiter, but by the bell for breakfast—and
I remembered that no one ever was awoke
when he desired at a Belgian hotel, unless
he was going to leave early, and they feared
he would run off without settling the bill.
There was nothing for it, but to sit up over
strong coffee and cigars. And so, to while
away the hours, I opened my parcel and
interpolated my despatch till it was unreadable,
and then had to write it over again, by which,
and sundry other expedients, I managed to
keep awake hour after hour till the chimes of
the cathedral warned me it was time to sally
forth. Stealing out of the great porte-cochère,
I passed through the silent streets—deserted
by all save the little lads in soldiers' clothes
glaring out with goggle sleepy eyes from
their sentry-boxes by the great white jail-like
looking houses belonging to Government
departments, and watching for their "reliefs,"—
and crossed the drawbridge and porte of the
octroi, where the Custom-house people had
just been roused into life by the approach of
a cabbage cart, which they were drawn up
to receive in hostile array.

It was a little after five when I arrived
at the station, Coli in hand, and, with the
exception of two more little soldiers propped
up by their big firelocks, and regarding me
as though I was going to run off with a
locomotive, not a soul was visible. In vain I
flattened my nose against the glass of every
accessible window till I was warned off by
the irritated infantry—no one was stirring.
So I took a meditative stroll by the moat
of the town, watched the little eels wriggling
through the mud, and made acquaintance with
a few Belgian ducks of dignified demeanour,
though of familiar habits, and then returned
to the charge.

This time I was more fortunate, for I caught
a glimpse of a man through a window, and
knocked at an adjoining door until it was
opened by a very cross-looking personage,
with scrubby moustache and dirty face, who
told me he was clerk in the very department
I sought. When led to his bureau I briefly
stated my business, and produced my Coli and
accompanying credentials. Judge again of
my horror when, after a cursory glance at
them and me, the fierce clerk, in an abrupt
tone, informed me the "Coli could not be
forwarded by that train—it must wait till the
afternoon, when it would be forwarded by
Ostend." To all my entreaties, expostulations,
and explanations, the fierce clerk had one
answer: "It was contrary to the regulations."
But he added that his chef would be at the
office speedily; and if I liked to wait I could
see what he would do. Very soon after, the
chef made his appearance; but, alas! he only
confirmed the decision of his clerk—My Coli
couldn't go by that train.

"But it is the only train I want it to
go by."

"Cela fait rien. Monsieur must know that
it is contrary to the regulations to send a
parcel to England by any route but the
Belgian one of Ostend."

"But surely, when I tell you the sole object
I have is to send it by Calais, you will allow
me to forward it by this train, which goes on
to Calais."

"Impossible; we have no convention with
France for the carriage of anything but
mails."

"Do you mean to say, sir, that my Coli will
be stopped at the French frontier?"

"Ah, that I cannot tell, Monsieur; but it
cannot—according to the regulations—go by
this train, as we have no convention for the
carriage of small parcels with France."

"Could he not let it go to the frontier?"

No, he was bound by the regulations, and
it would be contrary to the eternal regulations.
Meantime the train was ready to start.
I waxed eloquent. I appealed to him as a, man,
as a Christian, as a cosmopolite, as a Belgian,
as a chef. He was impregnable. He was a
fellow who would have laughed at
Demosthenes. He bowed to me. He took snuff.
He blew his nose. He gazed at me with a
calm, vacant self-possession during my finest
passages. I offered two hundred francs to
any one who would take my parcel to Calais,
and to pay his expenses.

"It was a noble, generous, princely offer;
but, alas, no one could accept it.—Ah! pardon!
Mathieu! Ma-thieu! Ma-a-thieu!" And here
the chef ran across the line after a delinquent
official, with whom he speedily grappled in
warm controversy. The guard blew his cracked
horn, an answering blast came from the front
of the train, and off went the carriage, while
I was left lamenting. I was stopped at the
octroi.

"Had Monsieur anything to declare?"

I offered them my parcel. They gracefully,
but decidedly rejected it. On reaching my
hotel, driven from despair to recklessness, I
put my parcel in the fire; though, half
an hour before, I would not have done so for
fifty pounds.

And this is the brisk way in which they
deal with express parcels in Belgium.