I found the same waiter, who, so soon as I come in, tell me, "Sir, did
you not say that you would go by the coach to-morrow morning?" I replied
"Yes--and I have bespeaked a seat out of the side, because I shall wish
to amuse myself with the country, and you have no cabriolets[F] in your
coaches." "Sir," he say, very polite, "if you shall allow me, I would
recommend you the _box_, and then the coachman shall tell everything."
"Very well," I reply, "yes; to be sure--I shall have a _box_ then--yes;"
and then I demanded a fire into my chamber, because I think myself
enrhumed upon the sea, and the maid of the chamber come to send me in
bed: but I say, "No so quick, if you please; I will write to some friend
how I find myself in England. Very well--here is the fire, but perhaps
it shall go out before I have finish." She was pretty laughing young
woman, and say, "Oh no, sir, if you pull the bell, the porter, who sit
up all night, will come, unless you like to attend to it yourself, and
then you will find the coal-_box_ in the closet." Well--I say nothing
but "yes--oh yes." But when she is gone, I look direct into the closet,
and see a _box_ not no more like none of the other _boxes_ what I see
all day than nothing.
[Footnote F: The cabriolet is the front part of the old French
diligence, with a hood and apron, holding three persons, including the
guard, or "conducteur."]
Well--I write at my friends, and then I tumble about when I wake, and
dream in the sleep what should possible be the description of the _box_
what I must be put in to-morrow for my voyage.
In the morning, it was very fine time, I see the coach at the door, and
I walk all round before they bring the horses; but I see nothing what
they can call _boxes_, only the same kind as what my little business
was put into. So I ask for the post of letters at a little boots boy,
who showed me by the Quay, and tell me, pointing by his finger at a
window--"There see, there was the letter-_box_," and I perceive a
crevice. "Very well--all _box_ again to-day," I say, and give my letter
to the master of postes, and go away again at the coach, where I very
soon find out what was coach-_box_, and mount myself upon it. Then come
the coachman, habilitated like the gentleman, and the first word he say
was--"Keep, horses! Bring my _box_-coat!" and he push up a grand capote
with many scrapes.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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