“By Jove!” exclaimed Harry, who, ensconced behind a window-curtain, had been examining the turn out with all the interest with which a position of enforced idleness invests every trifle. “By the powers there’s a foreign coronet on the carriage, and ditto on Don Whiskerando’s buttons! I wonder what she is like! Young and pretty, by all that is interesting and romantic! I dare say she is going to cross in the same boat as we are. Yes! Whiskerandos is gesticulating and explaining, and the landlord waves his hand in the direction of the pier. Now comes the bore of being a married man: what a splendid adventure I am shut out from! If I were but single, an opportunity now offers of captivating a lovely and accomplished foreign Countess, with a dowry of diamonds in her dressing-box, and a gold mine in her precious pocket: there’s a good opening for a nice young man!” “Pray avail yourself of it,” returned Alice. “Don’t let me be any obstacle; carry off the Countess, and I will remain behind with that noble creature whom you style Don Whiskerandos. I prefer him infinitely to you, he is so like a very well-trained baboon.” Harry’s conjecture that the mysterious Countess meant to cross in the same vessel with, himself and his wife proved correct; for, scarcely had he seen Alice comfortably established on a snug bench, where, if the sea-fiend should be so uncourteous as to attack her, she could on an emergency lie down, when daintily tripped along the human chicken-ladder which connected the vessel with the shore, the graceful, _bien chaussé_, little feet of the Countess. Then ensued a grand scene. Whiskerandos either did not comprehend, or refused to comply with some demand of the hotel commissionaire, who had taken upon himself the charge of the baggage, and who accordingly resisted his conveying his mistress’s luggage on board. Whiskerandos grimaced and chattered in a polyglot jargon, apparently compounded of every language under heaven, and utterly incomprehensible to the deepest philologist extant: the commissionaire was immovable. Whiskerandos implored--the commissionaire was deaf to his entreaties. Whiskerandos stormed--the commissionaire was inexorable. Whiskerandos, unable to endure his fate with calmness, went raving mad--he swore oaths so replete with improbable consonants that it is only a wonder they did not smash every tooth in his head; he stumped, shrieked, clenched his fists, and shook them in the face of his adversary--in vain; the commissionaire remained adamant, and prepared actually to carry off the offending luggage.