Pickwick Abroad: A Companion to the Pickwick Papers — page 9: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

. © month of November, 1834, a crowd of é Ps i * eo x ¥ ie | f 4 HA fy ‘ee » Se a a CHAPTER IL ey, A considerable sensation on the Quay at Calais ; its cause ; and other particulars intimately ¢on- nected with certain illustrious characters. Ar an unusual hour in the morning of a very foggy and disagreeable day in the washed and unwashed—English and French—male and female—residents in, visitors to, the eminently respectable towh of Calais, was assembled upon the quay where the steam-vessels generally land their passengers. Had the motley group met on the Grande Place, one might have fancied that the cause of congregation was | a political ebullition, or the arrival of an. itinerant juggler—either of which occur- rences 1s understood to afford an , essential interest to the French in general. But on this occasion the quay was the point of -.. rendezvous; and as two or three hundred. people seldom ne os for the pur- pose of gazing upo most the same as gazing upon nothing, when there are no ships to attract attention, we must suppose that a more important object called them thither. ~ The fact of the matter was, that a kine’s messenger, on his way to Paris, in the company of a bag full of sheets of writing- yaper, with much profound diplomatic lore scribbled thereon, Fad informed the waiter of Dessin’s Hotel the day before the one on which these memoirs commence, that an illustrious personage, accompanied by his ‘servant and two friends, intended to cross the water on the following morning; for which purpose he had already arrived as far as Dover, his habitual residence having lately been in the neighbourhood of London. % e sea, which is al- | PICKWICK ABROAD. " _ M. Dessin’s waiter, being gifted with just so much curiosity as to originate the ques- tion, inquired who the illustrious traveller might be; and when the magic name of Pickwick was breathed in his ear by the important king’s messenger, he immediately communicated the intelligence to his com- rades in the kitchen, whence the news forth- with spread like wildfire through the town, and inspired the conducteur of a diligence with the notabie resolution of performing his journey to Paris in one hour less time than usual, in order to carry the joyful tid- ings to the French metropolis as early as possible. At about ten o'clock A. m., a small boat rowed by two stout sailors, and containing two or three other individuals seated at the stern, was seen slowly moving up the har- bor against a strong tide. A great and visible agitation immediately pervaded the crowd assembled upon the port, and a few respectably dressed Englishmen, in dirty shooting-jackets and battered hats, immedi- ately exclaimed, “ Here is the immortal Pickwick!” But as the bark drew nearer to the quay, it was ascertained that it was merely a fishing-boat filled with herrings, and the crew, and curiosity thus remained ungratified for a short space longer. No sooner had the excitement caused by this false alarm subsided, than it was rumored that a courier had only a few moments back galloped into the town ata tremendous rate, his horse foaming at the mouth, and himself covered with mud; and report moreover declared that the said courier had been despatched from Boulogne to assure the mayor and worthy inhabitants of Calais that Mr. Pickwick and his follow- ers had landed at the port of the former EO JOO iGO