THE PASSPORT.

PARIS.

WHEN I got home to my hotel, La Fleur told me I had been inquired after by the Lieutenant de Police. "The deuce take it," said I, “I know the reason." It is time the reader should know it, for in the order of things in which it happened, it was omitted; not that it was out of my head, but that had I told it then it might have been forgotten now; and now is the time I want it.

I had left London with so much precipitation, that it never entered my mind that we were at war with France; and had reached Dover, and looked through my glass at the hills beyond Boulogne, before the idea presented itself; and with this in its train, that there was no getting there without a passport. Go but to the end of a street, I have a mortal aversion for returning back no wiser than I set out; and as this was one of the greatest efforts I had ever made for knowledge, I could less

bear the thoughts of it; so hearing the Count de had hired the packet, I begged he would take me in his suite. The Count had some little knowledge of me, so made little or no difficulty; only said his inclination to serve me could reach no further than Calais, as he was to return by way of Brussels to Paris; however, when I had once passed there, I might get to Paris without interruption: but that in Paris I must make friends and shift for myself. "Let me get to Paris, Monsieur le Count, ," said I, "and I shall do very well." So I embarked, and never thought more of the

matter.

When La Fleur told me the Lieutenant de Police had been inquiring after me, the thing instantly occurred; and by the time La Fleur had well told me, the master of the hotel came into my room to tell me the same thing, with this addition to it, that my passport had been particularly asked after: the master of the hotel concluded with saying, "He hoped I had one.” "Not I, faith!” said I.

The master of the hotel retired three steps from me as an infected person, as I declared

this, and poor La Fleur advanced three steps towards me, and with that sort of movement which a good soul makes to succour a distressed one; the fellow won my heart by it; and from that single trait, I knew his character as perfectly, and could rely upon it as firmly, as if he had served me with fidelity for seven years.

'Monseigneur !" cried the master of the hotel; but recollecting himself as he made the exclamation, he instantly changed the tone of it. "If monsieur," said he, "has not a passport (apparemment), in all likelihood he has friends in Paris who can procure him one."

"Not that I know of," quoth I, with an air of indifference.

"Then certes," replied he, "you'll be sent to the Bastile, or the Châtelet, au moins."

"Pooh!" said I, "the King of France is a good-natured soul; he'll hurt nobody."

“Cela n'empêche pas,” said he; “you will certainly be sent to the Bastile to-morrow morning."

But I've taken your lodgings for a month,"

answered I; "and I'll not quit them a day before the time for all the Kings of France in the world."

"That no

La Fleur whispered in my ear, body could oppose the King of France."

"Pardi !" said my host, "ces Messieurs Anglois sont des gens très-extraordinaires;” and, having both said and sworn it, he went out.

THE PASSPORT.

THE HOTEL AT PARIS.

I COULD not find in my heart to torture La Fleur's with a serious look upon the subject of my embarrassment, which was the reason I had treated it so cavalierly; and to shew him how light it lay upon my mind, I dropped the subject entirely, and, whilst he waited upon me at supper, talked to him with more than usual gaiety about Paris, and of the Opéra Comique. La Fleur had been there himself, and had followed me through the streets as far as the

bookseller's shop, but seeing me come out with the young fille de chambre, and that we walked down the Quai de Conti together, La Fleur deemed it unnecessary to follow me a step further; so making his own reflections upon it, he took a shorter cut, and got to the hotel in time to be informed of the affair of the police against my arrival.

As soon as the honest creature had taken away, and gone down to sup himself, I then began to think a little seriously about my situation.

-And here, I know, Eugenius, thou wilt smile at the remembrance of a short dialogue which passed betwixt us the moment I was going to set out :-I must tell it here.

Eugenius, knowing that I was as little subject to be overburdened with money as thought, had drawn me aside to interrogate me how much I had taken care for. Upon telling him the exact sum, Eugenius shook his head, and said it would not do; so pulled out his purse in order to empty it into mine.

"I've enough in conscience, Eugenius," said I. "Indeed, Yorick, you have not," replied