Punch, or The London Charivari | Page 8

to ascertain._ In the not
very dim and distant future no doubt it will be so. I record the above
observation in italics, in order to attract the attention of all whom it
may and does and ought to concern. Perhaps they'll kindly see to it.
Our _déjeuner_ at Calais is as good as it usually is at that haven of
Restauration. After the buffeting of the waves, how sweet is the buffet
of the shore. I sit down at once, as an old Continental-travelling hand,

tell the waiter immediately what I am going to take, and forthwith it is
brought; then, in advance, I command the coffee, and have my French
money all ready in an outside-pocket, so that there shall be no
unnecessary delay. All station-feeding is a fearsome pastime. You are
never quite sure of the trains, and you never quite trust the waiter's
most solemn asseveration to the effect that you have still so many
minutes left, decreasing rapidly from fifteen to five, when, time being
up and the food down, you find yourself hurrying out on to the platform,
plunging recklessly in between the lines, uncertain as to your carriage,
and becoming more and more hot, nervous, and uncomfortable up to
the very last moment, when the stout guard, with the heavy black
moustache, and the familiar bronzed features set off by a cap-band
which once was red, bundles you into your proper place, bangs the door,
and you are off,--for Paris, or wherever your destination may be.
DAUBINET knows the proprietor of the restaurant, likewise the
proprietor's good lady and good children. He has a great deal to say to
them, always by means of working the semaphore with his arms and
hands, as if the persons with whom he excitedly converses were deaf;
and having lost all count of time, besides being in a state of
considerable puzzle as to the existence of his appetite, he is suddenly
informed by the head-waiter,--another of his acquaintances, for
DAUBINET, it appears, is a constant traveller to and fro on this route,
that if he wants, any thing he must take it at once, or he won't get it at
all, unless he chooses to stop there and lose his train. So DAUBINET
ladles some soup into his mouth, and savagely worries a huge lump of
bread: then having gobbled up the soup in a quarter of a second, and
having put away all the bread in another quarter, he pours a glass of
wine into a tumbler out of the bottle which I have had opened for both
of us, adds water, then tosses it off, wipes his lips with the napkin
which he bangs down on the table, and, with his hat and coat on, his
small bag in his hand, and quite prepared to resume the journey, he
cries, "_Allons! Petzikoff!_" (or some such word, which I suppose to
be either Russian or an ejaculation quite new and original, but _à la
Russe_, and entirely his own invention), with the cheery and
enthusiastic addition of, "Blass the Prince of WAILES!"
"By all means," I cordially respond, for we are on a foreign soil, where
loyalty to our Royal Family is no longer a duty only, but also a mark of

patriotism, which should ever distinguish the true Briton,--though, by
the way, now I think of it, DAUBINET is a lively Gaul. Subsequently,
observing my friend DAUBINET, I find that he is especially English in
France, and peculiarly French in England. On what is to me foreign,
but to him his own native soil, he is always bursting out into snatches
of our British National Anthem, or he sings the line above quoted. In
France he will insist on talking about London, England, Ireland,
Scotland, with imitations in slang or of brogue, as the case may be, on
every possible or even impossible opportunity; and, when the subject of
conversation does not afford him any chance for his interpolations, then,
for a time, he will "lay low," like. Brer Fox, only to startle us with some
sudden outbursts of song, generally selected from the popular English
Melodies of a byegone period, such as "_My Pretty Jane_," "_My Love
is like a red, red Rose_," or "_Good-bye, Sweetheart, good-bye_," and
such-like musical reminiscences, invariably finishing with a quotation
from the National Anthem, "_Rule Britannia_," or "Blass the Prince of
WAILES!" He is a travelling chorus.
We stop--I don't know where, as I trust entirely to my guide and
fellow-traveller--for a good twenty minutes' stuff, nominally dinner,
_en route_, about seven o'clock. It is the usual rush; the usual
indecision; the usual indigestion. DAUBINET does more execution
among the eatables and drinkables in five minutes than I can manage in
the full time allotted to refreshment; and not