The Steam-Packet: A Tale of the River and the Ocean — page 228: what you’re looking at

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

THE STEAM PACKET. 171 seemed for years to choose that spot as their chief Pandemonium, in preference to any other; for not all the lowest dens of Paris, nor the sinks of London, nor the stews of Vienna, can furnish forth a more fearful catalogue of crimes, deeds of depravity, and horrible instances of human infamy, than Calais. era SS As a town, this place has many recommendations. It is remark- _ ably clean, and very regularly built; it possesses an immense market- place, streets tolerably wide, splendid hotels, commodious lodging- houses, and agreeable promenades; and, in point of health, it is one _ of the most salubrious spots in the world. It is flourishing as a place of.commerce ; and, during the last war, many of the inhabitants made large fortunes by privateering. The French in Calais are by no means a favourable specimen of the nation generally—they having been ren- dered mistrustful, severe, and prejudiced, with regard to foreigners, by the innumerable rascalities practised upon them, we regret to say, by our own countrymen. In a word, an Englishman in Calais is. looked upon, ~ecessarily, as a rogue; whereas in any other part of France he is considered in quite an opposite point of view. The morning after the incidents related in the last chapter, Mr. Smale watched Mr. Buckram in pretty well the same manner as a sheriff’s officer dodges a gentleman out of one county into another, when the writ held by the aforesaid functionary is in the latter ; and at length he succeeded in driving the tailor into a corner of the coffee-room at Quillacq’s Hotel, where he pounced upon him, as one general does on another whom he has forced into a defile. Mr. Buckram saw that an explanation was inevitable; and affecting to be now suddenly aware for the first time that the young Custom-House clerk wanted to speak to him, he put a good face upon the matter, as he said, ‘° Holloa, Smale, my good friend—how are you % ? I haven’t had an opportunity of saying a word to you scarcely since my return.” . *¢ My lord, I have been anxious to have five minutes’ paecauon with your lordship,” began the clerk, fidgetting about with his watch- ehain, which festooned over his idietcant: “‘ Very natural, Smale—very natural,” cried the tailor; ‘as your ~ executor and trustee, I ought always to be accessible to you. hia it was only an hour ago, while I was writing to my most particular and intimate friend the Archbishop of York, that I used these words in my letter—‘ My young friend Smale has imposed an arduous task upon me,—that of executing a trust for his amiable family, whom I have never yet had the pleasure of seeing ; but who, if at all resembling him, must be everything kind, deserving, charming, and ingratiating.’ These were the very:words I used. | By the by, here is a copy of the Gomichbooks (E©)