About nine or ten at night the pains of hunger and cold drove us to an alehouse in the flats of Bedfordshire not far from Bedford itself. In the inn kitchen was a long, lean, characteristic-looking fellow of perhaps forty, dressed in black. He sat on a settle by the fireside, smoking a long pipe, such as they call a yard of clay. His hat and wig were hanged upon the knob behind him, his head as bald as a bladder of lard, and his expression very shrewd, cantankerous and inquisitive. He seemed to value himself above his company, to give himself the airs of a man of the world among that rustic herd; which was often no more than his due; being, as I afterwards discovered, an attorney's clerk. I took upon myself the more ungrateful part of arriving last; and by the time I entered on the scene the Major was already served at a side-table. Some general conversation must have passed, and I smelled danger in the air. The Major looked flustered, the attorney's clerk triumphant, and three or four peasants in smock-frocks (who sat about the fire to play chorus) had let their pipes go out. "Give you good-evening, sir!" said the attorney's clerk to me. "The same to you, sir," said I. "I think this one will do," quoth the clerk to the yokels with a wink; and then, as soon as I had given my order, "Pray, sir, whither are you bound?" he added. "Sir," said I, "I am not one of those who speak either of their business or their destination in houses of public entertainment." "A good answer," said he, "and an excellent principle.--Sir, do you speak French?" "Why, no, sir," said I. "A little Spanish, at your service." "But you know the French accent, perhaps?" said the clerk. "Well do I do that!" said I. "The French accent? Why, I believe I can tell a Frenchman in ten words." "Here is a puzzle for you, then!" he said. "I have no material doubt myself, but some of these gentlemen are more backward. The lack of education, you know. I make bold to say that a man cannot walk, cannot hear, and cannot see, without the blessings of education." He turned to the Major, whose food plainly stuck in his throat. "Now, sir," pursued the clerk, "let me have the pleasure to hear your voice again. Where are you going, did you say?" "Sare, I am go--ing to Lon--don," said the Major. I could have flung my plate at him to be such an ass, and to have so little a gift of languages where that was the essential. "What think ye of that?" said the clerk. "Is that French enough?" "Good God!" cried I, leaping up like one who should suddenly perceive an acquaintance, "is this you, Mr. Dubois? Why, who would have dreamed of encountering you so far from home?" As I spoke, I shook hands with the Major heartily; and turning to our tormentor, "O, sir, you may be perfectly reassured! This is a very honest fellow, a late neighbour of mine in the City of Carlisle." I thought the attorney looked put out; I little knew the man! "But he is French," said he, "for all that?"