I found Mr. Belcher was not in the habit of talking about himself, and I liked him the better for it. Without pressing for a more particular account, I led the conversation to treat of the different countries he had visited, referring, by the way, to some principal objects of attraction. Here I touched an idiosyncrasy of my new friend. "I never formed," he said, "any distinct 'plan' of travel. I never 'did' Paris in eight days, nor the gallery of the Louvre in half an hour, as they have been done by an acquaintance. I never opened a guide-book in my life; I never employed a _commissionere_, a _valet_, a _courier_, a _cicerone_, or a _dragoman_. My pleasure has been to let the remarkable--the beautiful--the interesting--burst upon me without introduction, and I have found my account in it. I have quitted the Val d'Arno, turned off from the Lake of Como, passed to the wrong side of Lake Leman and its romantic castles, pursuing my way, regardless of these well-worn attractions, while I beheld rarer--at least familiar scenes--and enjoyed with zest what was fresh and unhackneyed. No everlasting 'route'--no mercenary and dishonest landlords--no troops of travellers, travelling that they may become 'travelled'--but in place of all this, I saw every thing naturally--the country in its simplicity--the inhabitants in their simplicity--while, I trust, I have preserved my own simplicity. Indeed, I rather prefer what your tourist calls an 'uninteresting region.'" "For that reason," I remarked, pleasantly, "you have come here to Calais to spend a few weeks; you must enjoy the barren sand-plain which extends all the way from this to St. Omer. How picturesque are those pollards scattered along the road, with here and there a superannuated windmill, looking like an ogre with three arms and no legs: then, to relieve the dreariness of the place, you have multitudes of miserable cabins, grouped into more miserable villages, to say nothing of the chateaux of dingy red, in which painters of the brick-dust school so much delight. Really, Mr. Belcher, you will have a capital field here!" My new acquaintance shook his head a little seriously, as if deprecating further pleasantry. "You are like the rest of them, I fear," he remarked, "a surface traveller; at least you will force me to believe so if you go on in this way. But come," he continued, "the storm threatens to last the morning; if you wish, I will help to make away with part of it, by recounting a little adventure which happened to me hard by those very pollards, which you are pleased to abuse so freely." It is needless to add that I joyfully assented to the proposal, and was soon seated in Mr. Belcher's room before a cheerful fire--for he had managed even in Calais to procure one--when he commenced as follows: