yesterday's dinner, and fine old preserved
cigar smoke, kept tight since last summer,
when the windows were opened. There is
no help for it—sniff and pish as I may—and
I soon find myself deeply intrenched in a
fluffy bed, smelling abominably, and with
one sheet and a counterpane excessively dirty
to cover me. I am bound to confess,
however, I do not lack entertainment, and pass
a most lively night with certain dark-complexioned
guests who were not unexpected.

I get up the next morning jolly enough
under the circumstances, and—except a slight
difficulty in opening my left eye, owing to
certain kisses I received in the dark, and an
intolerable itching all over me—have nothing
to complain of. Yet, not being so satisfied,
perhaps, as I ought to be, I go out, and find
my way to the gentleman who resides in the
little house with the glass door. There my
important acquaintance is furious. There is
also a pale clerical looking man, with a large
family, taking an invalid daughter to Italy,
smarting under the prospect of another three
days at an hotel. There is M. de Taroc, a
distinguished member of the Jockey Club,
who has laid a bet that he will go to Naples
and back without taking off his under waistcoat;
and, having chosen the Great Do as
the quickest means of going, is gesticulating
wildly at the delay. There is Madame Fifine,
who will lose her engagement at the San Carlo
if she does not arrive there before
Mademoiselle Fanchon, her rival, who fearful of
sea-sickness is trying to cross the Alps. There
is also Captain Scurry, who has exceeded his
leave of absence from Malta, with a fraudulent
bankrupt or two, who evidently give
themselves up for lost now; while a poor
pale gentleman who is sighing and coughing
in a corner, has been robbed of his last straw
of a chance of prolonging his life a few feeble
mouths more.

"And will you have the complaisance to tell
all these people, Monsieur, why the Great
Do is not going to start?"

Monsieur shrugs his shoulders: he has
nothing to say to us. The Great Do does not
start because she is being painted, and because
her cargo is not complete, and because a
vessel expected from the Antipodes did not
come in yesterday—indeed, from a variety of
reasons.

"But how is that you print placards and
have them fixed up here and there, even in
the Neapolitan Embassy at Paris, engaging
to start on the twenty-third, and then break
your word?"

Monsieur shrugs his shoulders again, an
answer that will do for anything he says.
There are many people who are quiet equal
to us in rank and consideration—he means
to say our betters—who are also detained
and who make no complaint. Who are we,
and what do we want? "We may have our
passports back, and go by another boat; there
is one going to Naples to-morrow, he believes,
that is, on its return from the East Indies.
To be sure we shall not arrive there so soon
going round by Calcutta, as if we wait
for the Great Do, but he cannot help that.
There are our passports, if we want them—
they are no use to him. We appear to belong
to that class of individuals who will never
listen to reason, &c.

We reply that all we want is to go to
Naples; the fulfilment of a solemn printed
contract made between the Company he
represents and us, the public. That our sole
reason for choosing his vessel was as the
speediest means of getting to Naples. That
if it had not been advertised to start on the
twenty-third, and to arrive as soon as the
other boat carrying the mail, which started
on the nineteenth, and offered us the
additional temptation of a shorter voyage by sea,
we should have taken the mail boat. But
that now we are completely in the hands of
the Great Do till the twenty-ninth again.

The Monsieur replies that our language is
neither well chosen nor polite; that we appear
ignorant of the usages of genteel society.

We answer that we shall be subjected to
great expense and to grave inconvenience if
the Great Do does not proceed on her voyage
according to advertisement, and indeed that
some of our purses being exhausted, we shall
not be able to go at all.

To which the Monsieur answers that we
are free to go or to remain; and that as for
the Great Do, she will start some time within
a week and in the middle of the night—
probably on the twenty-fifth—that is, if she
completes her cargo, and the ship from the
Antipodes comes in. He has now the honour
to salute us, and will not hear anything more
on the subject. If we are not pleased we
have the alternative of being angry, that is all.

The mistral, which lulled yesterday, has set
in again to-day with such fury, that it is well
to carry a hooked walking-stick and catch
hold of something if you are going to turn a
corner, and to breast it suddenly. Never
mind, we will not waste our day. Let us go
down and have a talk with the boatmen on the
quays; they are very good fellows and take
their due thankfully and civilly. Here is my
old friend, who told me that the foreign grain
made bread which was not salt enough for
him. Let us hear what he has to say to-day.

"Well, my friend, will you have a cigar? Is
there anything new in to-day ?"

"There is an American war-sloop,
Monsieur."

Let us go on board, and our new friend
takes us. After being courteously received,
entertained, and instructed by the American
naval officers, we return, and are obliged to
lie down at full length in the boat, that she
may make any way against that abominable
mistral which is blowing right a-head. The
boatman is full of attention.

"Upon my word, you Marseilles boatmen
are a very good-natured set of fellows."