Pickwick Abroad: or, The Tour in France — page 185: what you’re looking at

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

142 Pickwick Abroad. Hundredth Psalm. With such facilities of varying his amusement, it is not to be wondered at if Mr. Pickwick took no note of time; nor shall we be much surprised to learn that the shades of night dimmed the lustre of that great man by enveloping him in its mists, before he had satisfactorily determined in his own mind where he was to seek for shelter. He however congratulated himself upon the possession of the old brown wig, and forgot that if he had been in England he would have certainly passed as a fugitive Pantaloon from an itinerant sixpenny theatre. r. Pickwick had probably wandered through the mazes of the wood for about an hour, when the train of his meditations was inter- rupted by the coincidence of a slight fall which he had in the middle of a tolerably deep ditch; and, on his emerging therefrom, he only leapt out of the frying-pan into the fire. In other words, he had no sooner managed to scramble to the top of the bank, when he was roughly seized by the unsaintly hands of three or four individuals whom the clattering of swords and other articles of military equipment pronounced to be Gendarmes. If any doubt remained in Mr. Pick- wick’s mind as to the actual profession of the gentlemen into whose ower he had fallen, it was speedily dispersed by the light which a k lanthorn speedily threw upon the whole party, the said dark lanthorn being an especial ¢¢em in the catalogue of worldly possessions which called the chief of the Gendarmes ‘‘ owner.”’ Our hero's first impulse was to level an avalanche of eloquence at the Gendarmes who thus illegally detained his august person in custody: his second, being doubtless prompted by a very shrewd suspicion that the officers did not understand the exact menuti@ of his language, was to hold his peace, and accompany his captors in meek resignation to the place whither it seemed good to them to conduct him. In pursuance of this plan, Mr. Pickwick was obliged to retrace his steps in conformity with the wishes and movements of his careful guides ; and in three quarters of an hour the cavalcade entered the little town of Boulogne,* Mr. Pickwick with his comfortable and becoming wig marching in the midst of the grim-looking police that surrounde him. To the honour of the French be it, however, mentioned, that as Mr. Pickwick marched in state through Boulogne, no eggs assailed his person, although plenty of sarcasm was levelled against his por- tentous wig by the groups of idlers whom the novelty of the scene not a little amused. But the individual who had whilome founded the most celebrated club that ever existed, and had carried his re- searches not only into many obscure parts of his own country, but even to the metropolis of a foreign one, was not to be daunted by the shouts of laughter, hurraing, and screaming, which his august pre- sence beneath the brown wig elicited from the inhabitants of Boulogne. Mr. Pickwick was marched direct to the office of the Commissary of Police of the little town aforesaid ; and after a few preliminary forms, that functionary of the law proceeded to inform him that he was “ ap- prebended under the suspicion of being a notorious robber and thief who, in divers disguises, but especially in that of the brown wig, h * Boulogne is a small town in the vicinity of Paris. Hence the distinction of Boulogne-sur-Mer, or Boulogne-by-the-Sea. COL () NOOO KS (c@