The Steam-Packet: A Tale of the River and the Ocean — page 287: what you’re looking at

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

222 * THE STEAM PACKET, martial law is considered to be appeased with a few days’ confinement, There is no flogging in the French army: that degrading and immoral practice has long been banished from the military code of that truly chivalrous nation. Imprisonment, stoppage of pay or indulgences, ~ and expulsion from the army are the means by which delinquencies are punished, and discipline maintained. The Luminaries passed a pleasant evening with the French officers, to whom Captain Pentonville made himself particularly agreeable by the relation of a number of anecdotes, which only required truth for their basis to have been inimitable. The tailor performed Lord Noodleton, as usual, in a manner which produced a great impression upon the English gentlemen present; but the French officers afterwards remarked amongst themselves, that ‘‘if an English lord was nothing more than what he appeared to be, hereditary nobility was not such a very salutary thing after all.” As for Mr. Pifpaf, he was quite de- lighted, because he had been allowed to drink as much punch as he chose, and to fall asleep for half an hour towards the end of the enter- tainment without being told upon waking up, “‘ that his snoring quite went through and through his wife’s poor head;”—and Mr. Smale forgot the unpleasant adventure of the evening in the enjoyment of the pleasant society in which he found himself. When the gentlemen returned to the Hotel Quillacgq, to their sur- prise they found Mrs. Pifpaf and her daughters waiting for them in the sitting-room, although it was past twelve o’clock when they reached that tenement. Mrs. Pifpaf was lying upon the sofa, as her “ poor head nearly drove her distracted ;”” Miss Aramintha was deep in Lara ; Miss Belinda was romping with a fine large tortoiseshell cat that had found its way into the room; and Miss Sarah was dozing over a harp. ; “ My dear papa!”” exclaimed Aramintha, starting up the moment the door opened. ‘‘Oh! Iam so glad you have come home! Such doings since you have been gone: I am sure Mr. Rumtutch ‘ Knows himself a villain, and he deems The world no better than the thing he seems.” * Rumtutch, my dear?”’ cried Mr. Pifpaf: ‘‘ what is the matter with the Secretary of the Honourable and Independent Order of Luminaries ?”’ .. ©In rebellion—in open rebellion, with Tiptile, Crumplings, Glass- nose, Turnchurch, Kruby, and Nibkins!” answered Miss Aramintha. ‘“‘'Yes, papa—they have exceeded all the bounds of decency,” said Belinda, jumping over a foot-stool at the same time. Gomicbooks (E{0)