——BOULOGNE!——hah!——so we are all got together——debtors and sinners before heaven; a jolly set of us—but I can’t stay and quaff it off with you—I’m pursued myself like a hundred devils, and shall be overtaken, before I can well change horses:——for heaven’s sake, make haste——’Tis for high-treason, quoth a very little man, whispering as low as he could to a very tall man, that stood next him——Or else for murder; quoth the tall man——Well thrown, _Size-ace!_ quoth I. No; quoth a third, the gentleman has been committing——— _Ah! ma chere fille!_ said I, as she tripp’d by from her matins—you look as rosy as the morning (for the sun was rising, and it made the compliment the more gracious)—No; it can’t be that, quoth a fourth——(she made a curt’sy to me—I kiss’d my hand) ’tis debt, continued he: ’Tis certainly for debt; quoth a fifth; I would not pay that gentleman’s debts, quoth _Ace_, for a thousand pounds; nor would I, quoth _Size_, for six times the sum—Well thrown, _Size-ace_, again! quoth I;—but I have no debt but the debt of NATURE, and I want but patience of her, and I will pay her every farthing I owe her——How can you be so hard-hearted, Madam, to arrest a poor traveller going along without molestation to any one upon his lawful occasions? do stop that death-looking, long-striding scoundrel of a scare-sinner, who is posting after me——he never would have followed me but for you——if it be but for a stage or two, just to give me start of him, I beseech you, madam——do, dear lady—— ——Now, in troth, ’tis a great pity, quoth mine _Irish_ host, that all this good courtship should be lost; for the young gentlewoman has been after going out of hearing of it all along.—— ——Simpleton! quoth I. ——So you have nothing _else_ in _Boulogne_ worth seeing? —By Jasus! there is the finest SEMINARY for the HUMANITIES—— —There cannot be a finer; quoth I. C H A P. XCI WHEN the precipitancy of a man’s wishes hurries on his ideas ninety times faster than the vehicle he rides in—woe be to truth! and woe be to the vehicle and its tackling (let ’em be made of what stuff you will) upon which he breathes forth the disappointment of his soul! As I never give general characters either of men or things in choler, “_the most haste the worse speed_,” was all the reflection I made upon the affair, the first time it happen’d;—the second, third, fourth, and fifth time, I confined it respectively to those times, and accordingly blamed only the second, third, fourth, and fifth post-boy for it, without carrying my reflections further; but the event continuing to befal me from the fifth, to the sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth, and tenth time, and without one exception, I then could not avoid making a national reflection of it, which I do in these words; _That something is always wrong in a French post-chaise, upon first setting out._ Or the proposition may stand thus: _A French postilion has always to alight before he has got three hundred yards out of town._