256 A MONTH IN THE FORESTS OF FRANCE. 



<c r-r-r's " with which the lower classes garnish a 

 variety of execrations when they are in a rage — in 

 that they would overwhelm to nothing the English 

 Billingsgate vocabulary. I pray of all my friends 

 in France, who may read this, to reflect on what 

 I say, and to leave off not only French oaths, 

 but those that they have inadvertently picked up in 

 English : they are not characteristic of the English 

 gentleman's conversation, and they are vulgar and 

 disgustingly obscene. 



Well, we rattled on pleasantly enough throughout 

 the journey, and in good time arrived in Paris. 

 Every body was civil ; and, when I had collected 

 my luggage, one little hamper alone was missing. 

 Having announced the fact to the assembled porters, 

 one requested me to follow him, and conducted me 

 to the long table, behind which the officials were 

 standing, with my litle hamper before them, in serious 

 cogitation. I had paid for luggage over weight, and 

 for every imaginable thing ; so why was my little 

 hamper thus an object of suspicion? 



" What is in this hamper ? " asked the civil func- 

 tionary, in his native tongue. 



*^ Nothing ! " I replied, in my funny French. 



" Oh yes. Monsieur," he said, '^ there is something " 

 (lifting it up and trying its weight). 



