The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 14, No. 381, July 18, 1829 — John Shaqi
The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 14, No. 381, July 18, 1829Various
History
The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 14, No. 381, July 18, 1829
Various
Popular literature -- Great Britain -- Periodicals
"Yes, yes," I answered, "goot vine and charming girl."
"Charming girl too!"
"Ya, ya."
"Landsman, shall I go with you."
"Ya, ya, me grat content."
"Ah, you content, well! I quit France, yield the old woman, (he showed
me by his fingers that Madame Moiselet was three-and-thirty,) and in
your land I take little girl no more as fifteen years."
"Ya, bien, a girl no infant: a! you is a brave lad."
Moiselet returned more than once to his project of emigration; he
thought seriously of it, but to emigrate liberty was requisite, and
they were not inclined to let us go out. I suggested to him that he
should escape with me on the first opportunity--and when he had
promised me that we would not separate, not even to take a last adieu
of his wife, I was certain that I should soon have him in my toils.
This certainly was the result of very simple reasoning. Moiselet, said
I to myself, will follow me to Germany: people do not travel or live
on air: he relies on living well there: he is old, and, like king
Solomon, proposes to tickle his fancy with some little Abishag of
Sunem. Oh, father Moiselet has found the _black hen_; here he has no
money, therefore his black hen is not here; but where is she? We shall
soon learn, for we are to be henceforward inseparable.
As soon as my man had made all his reflections, and that, with his
head full of his castles in Germany, he had so soon resolved to
expatriate himself, I addressed to the king's attorney-general a
letter, in which, making myself known as the superior agent of the
Police de Sûreté, I begged him to give an order that I should be sent
away with Moiselet, he to go to Livry, and I to Paris.
We did not wait long for the order, and the jailer announced it to us,
on the eve of its being put into execution; and I had the night before
me to fortify Moiselet in his resolutions. He persisted in them more
strongly than ever, and acceded with rapture to the proposition I made
him of effecting an escape from our escort as soon as it was feasible.
So anxious was he to commence his journey, that he could not sleep. At
daybreak, I gave him to understand that I took him for a thief as well
as myself.
"Ah, ah, grip also," said I to him, "deep, deep François, you not
spoken, but tief all as von."
He made me no answer; but when, with my fingers squeezed together _à
la Normande_, he saw me make a gesture of grasping something, he could
not prevent himself from smiling, with that bashful expression of
_Yes_, which he had not courage to utter. The hypocrite had some shame
about him, the shame of a devotee. I was understood.
At length the wished-for moment of departure came, which was to enable
us to accomplish our designs. Moiselet was ready three whole hours
beforehand, and to give him courage, I had not neglected to push about
the wine and brandy, and he did not leave the prison until after
having received all his sacraments.
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