THE CHATEAU. 407 



hard necessity of waiting for my uncle's shoes, and promised to return 

 for them before the expiration of a month. As the mendicant appeared 

 by no means anxious to depart, my uncle left him at his ease, and 

 returned to the discussion of his dinner ; during which, he heard his 

 visitor applying every question to the Flamande on the subject of his 

 means, his character, his pursuits, the objects of his coming, the quality 

 and number of his wines, his strength of stock in short, acquiring, by 

 a point-blank catechism, an inventory of his personal effects, and an 

 account of every thing about him. The Flamande answered with as 

 much detail as if she had been a heretic replying to the grand inquisitor. 

 When the list of his inquiries was exhausted, he walked before my 

 uncle's window, and, looking wistfully upon his wine, adverted to its 

 cost. My uncle answered, and regaled him with a glass. He next 

 inquired if the utensils on the table were of solid silver, or mere plated 

 ware, continuing still to smoke, to expectorate, and gaze upon my rela- 

 tive, who little relished the intrusion ; which the mendicant observing, 

 plucked a flower, arid bid my uncle a good day, a demarche occasioned 

 by his seeing in the avenue a string of his profession, who were flocking 

 to the Anglais for their Friday's sou. These visits of the mendicants are 

 troublesome at first, but like all other minor evils, are rendered tolerable 

 by the strength of habit, and an effort at endurance. Not so the depre- 

 dations practised on my uncle's fruit, an offence to which not even cus- 

 tom (and it was of quick recurrence) could reconcile him. His garden 

 was his hobby. In many instances, these spoliations were the evident 

 effect of wanton mischief; in others, they appeared the work of sheer 

 starvation ; and an Englishman's domain is looked on as the ground of 

 lawful plunder, where the rigors of the law cannot protect the gardens 

 of the natives, even from the midnight outrages of penury and wretch- 

 edness. But there is an art in being happy ; and that art my uncle 

 understood. He accommodated himself to disagreeables, and disarmed 

 them, as he might, by the exertion of his temper. His grand project of 

 retirement was, however, utterly destroyed ; for no sooner had he found 

 the quiet quartier of his solitude, that "haven of his hopes," than the 

 vicinity became the haunt of many of his countrymen; and shortly after 

 his establishment in what he had prospectively beheld as a seclusion, he 

 was thoroughly surrounded by a colony of economizing English. My 

 uncle's neighbours will be better known, if we relate the humours of a 

 party, to which he was invited at the campagne of the nabob ; our old 

 acquaintance, Mr. Blunt. The pompous Indian's residence was chosen 

 for its towering aspect, and the length of face which it presented to the 

 passer by. It was plump against the road, and seemed a curious experi- 

 ment in architecture, of the smallest given quantity of brick and mortar 

 that could combine the largest number possible of doors and windows. 

 It looked more like an English cotton manufactory or paper mill, than 

 the abode of any private individual. It was almost all window, roof, 

 and door, with an enormous yellow ochre column on each flank ; the 

 one surmounted by a grinning Pan, the other by a Dutch-built, mascu- 

 line Bacchante, who held a chalice in her hand, and owned such pecu- 

 liar conformation and rotundity, that the beholder trembled for the 

 fabric on which she had reposed her overgrown dimensions. 



Mr. Killjoy, Mr. Thompson and his wife, the two John Smiths, the 

 Oxford scholars, a Major Dry-rot and his lady, besides my uncle, were 

 the number asked to honour Mr. Blunt's display. The interlopers we 



