"No, no; _that_ isn't what I mean; but kings are at such a discount in our days, that there is no knowing what may happen; and I am the only monarch who has cleaned his own boots--and I can do it again!" His own reverses followed so soon after, that the "exiled Majesty of France" must have remembered this conversation. * * * * * Mrs. P. was a dumpy little Englishwoman, with whom and her husband we once performed the voyage of the Danube from Vienna to Constantinople. She was essentially what the English call "a nice person," and as adventurous a little body as ever undertook the journey "from Cheapside to Cairo." She had left home a bride, to winter at Naples, intending to return in the spring. But both she and her husband had become so fascinated with travel, that they had pushed on from Italy to Greece, and from Greece to Asia Minor. In the latter country, they made the tour of the Seven Churches--a pilgrimage in which it was our fortune afterward to follow them. Upon one occasion, somewhere near Ephesus, they were fallen upon by a lot of vagabonds, and Mr. P. got most unmercifully beaten. His wife did not stop to calculate the damage, but whipping up her horse, rode on some two miles further, where she awaited in safety her discomfited lord. Upon the return of the warm season, our friends had gone up to Ischl in the Tyrol, to spend the summer, and when we had the pleasure of meeting them, they were "en route" for Syria, the Desert, and Egypt. Mrs. P., although a most amiable woman, had a perverse prejudice against America and the Americans. Among other things, she could not be convinced that any thing like refinement among females could possibly exist on this side of the Atlantic. We did our utmost to dispel this very singular illusion, but we do not think that we ever entirely succeeded. Upon one occasion, when we insisted upon her giving us something more definite than mere general reasons for her belief, she answered us in substance as follows: She had met, the summer before, she said, at Ischl, a gentleman and his wife from New York, who were posting in their own carriage, and traveling with all the appendages of wealth. They were well-meaning people, she declared, but shockingly coarse. That they were representatives of the best class at home, she could not help assuming. Had she met them in London or Paris, however, she said, she might have thought them mere adventurers, come over for a ten days' trip. The lady, she continued, used to say the most extraordinary things imaginable. Upon one occasion, when they were walking together, they saw, coming toward them, a gentleman of remarkably attenuated form. The American, turning to her companion, declared that the man was so thin, that if he were _to turn a quid of tobacco, from one cheek to the other, he would lose his balance and fall over_. This was too much for even our chivalry, and for the moment we surrendered at discretion.