“_Familiar in their Mouths as HOUSEHOLD WORDS._”--SHAKESPEARE. HOUSEHOLD WORDS. A WEEKLY JOURNAL CONDUCTED BY CHARLES DICKENS. No. 307.] SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 9, 1856. {PRICE 2_d._ {STAMPED 3_d._ TABLE OF CONTENTS THE SULINA MOUTH OF THE DANUBE. DAY-WORKERS AT HOME. TWO COLLEGE FRIENDS. SORROW AND MY HEART. FRENCH AND ENGLISH STAFF OFFICERS. CHIPS. LITTLE SAINT ZITA. THE SULINA MOUTH OF THE DANUBE. It was November, and the morrow of our arrival at Sulina dawned a dreary, sunless day, rather cold. We spent it waiting for the boat, which was due from Constantinople. Our pilot, however, surmised that there had been bad weather for many days in the Black Sea, and that no captain in the service of the Austrian Lloyd’s would have ventured to pass the Bosphorus while it lasted. The pilot was a dark, sharp-featured, timorous Greek, of about forty years of age. His name was Birbantaki, a name of high account in every port of the Euxine. So the long and the short Austrian officer--part of our company from Galatz[1]--very sensibly went out snipe-shooting. They were joined by the Greek consul; who, having no house here, is living on board one of the Danube Company’s vessels, called the Metternich. That consul is driving a very brisk business; for, from the masts of six hundred of the thousand ships detained here by stress of weather, fluttered the gay colours of King Otho. Also, with the shooting-party, goes the agent of the Lloyd Company; a pleasant and influential gentleman, very popular about here. It is said he had five thousand pounds’ worth of property--the hard savings of many thrifty years--destroyed by us. If this be true I shall be surprised to learn it is considered by the authorities as one of the inevitable private wrongs which are wrought by all wars. I cannot quite admit such reasoning, however; for surely, this person is as much entitled to a fair indemnity for the loss of his property, as were the owners of the British merchantman destroyed by the Russians at Sinope. By the way, also, what with Count Zamoïski and Colonel Turr, as well as such little episodes as the agent’s affair, have we not been playing a very strange little game with Austria? Not to put too fine a point upon it, may I be bold enough to hint that we have been soliciting her alliance while slyly tweaking her nose? I wish, sometimes, that our good folks in authority had taken riper counsel in these matters; for we have made many needless and many very bitter enmities. When the shooting party return, therefore, I am not at all surprised to see a Russian officer with them. He is a common-looking-man; awkward, dirty, and, seemingly, of no social importance; but, as he comes on board, two Levantines seize eagerly on an opportunity of offering a loud insult to an Englishman, and then strut, blustering and bowing to the Muscovite, after the manner of their kind.