The Steam-Packet: A Tale of the River and the Ocean — page 183: what you’re looking at

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

134 : THE STEAM PACKET, from mother’s house last Chrismus owes us, and witch mother as gennerusly maid over to me, i can’t restrane my pleshur. Mi sole plays lepe frog inside o’? me; and mi hart is about as nye bustin as that air one they tell on in the fabel. ‘“So now no more, dere jain, till necks time. Tve got a presshus bad pen, so don’t find falt with the ritin ; and as for the spellin’ don't mind that, cos i never could spel eedh o’ more than two syllibuls. Rite to me in return, and address your letter to me at the Hotel day Bangs, Bull-long,* where we shall bee, plese god, in a veek. ““Good bi, dere jain. Your dewoted luvyer, “Tom GIBBINS.” This letter was folded and sealed with all imaginable care; and Mr. Gibbins then proceeded in person to put it into the post-office, accom- panied by the commissioner of the hotel to show him the way. CHAPTER XIV. IN WHICH MR, GIBBINS IS REGALED WITH A MOST INTERESTING DIS- QUISITION UPON THE POVERTY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE, WHICH LEADS TO SOME EQUALLY INTERESTING PUGILISM, ALSO IN THE EN- GLISH STYLE, Tut Commissioner of the Hotel, who became the companion of Mr. Gibbins as aforesaid, was one of those shrewd but conceited Frenchmen who think nothing so fine as their own country, no institution so grand as the National Guard, and no language in the world so mellifluous as that which they speak. The commis- sioner could, moreover, gibber a little English; and, being exces- sively vain of this accomplishment, he speedily enlisted Mr. Gibbins in a most animated discussion upon the relative excellence of the two languages. This debate was conducted with great moderation on both sides; and if there were any peculiarities about it, we must observe that Mr. Gibbins interlarded his arguments with several emphatic oaths and imprecations in the true English ver- nacular, while the commissioner quoted a multitude of proverbs which he had picked up in a book, and which he lugged in neck * Query Hotel des Bains, Boulogne ?>—Parinrer’s Devit. Eomicbooks. co