180 The Old Dover Eoad, 



the shape of a very polished foreign lady, the wheels of 

 whose carriage caught fire, who was very diffident about 

 coming into " the priest's house," as she called it in French* 

 and was no less a person than Taglioni, and who made her- 

 self most charming, and was enraptured wdth the garden 

 and the flowers and the scenery. Another day we had a 

 Pole, very shabby and travel-worn, evidently a gentleman* 

 and the old governor had him in to luncheon (which he 

 ate like a famished man), and lent him — for the man would 

 not take the money as a gift — five shillings. How he was 

 chaffed about lending the foreigner the '' five bob," and 

 especially about his credulity in thinking that he would 

 ever see it again; and didn't he turn the tables on the 

 scoffers when three months afterwards he received a letter 

 from Constantinople, all cut and slashed and perfumed as a 

 disinfectant from plague, with the money returned, and a 

 letter, which was worth its weight in thousand pound notes, 

 saying that the loan enabled him to reach London and saved 

 him from starving, and that he had atained a good berth. 



Then we had a black man in the runaway slave business, 

 if I remember rightly, who was on the tramp and said he 

 was very ill. My mother, who, a la parson's wife, physicked 

 the whole parish, fully believed him, and said, *' I am sure 

 he is bilious by the look of his eyes ; " and she made him a 

 strong dose of rhubarb and jalap, which Mr. Snowball took 

 on trust, thinking it was something good, and put it down 

 at a gulp. If any " corner " man in an Ethiopian band 

 could make the face that nigger did, and fly to the pump as 

 that man did, it would make his fortune. A great hunch 

 of bread and bacon to cheer him up, when he got better, 

 consoled him ; but we never had another nigger to beg. 



Then we had a coach upset, and a member of a poor 

 French family was seriously injured. The Frenchman's 

 purse was very nearly empty, and the luggage was almost 



