488 PALAIS ROYAL. 



and you may allure yourfelf that they do not overlook 

 a lingle perfon that has taken a chair, and likewife they 

 will never alk a perfon for money, that has already 

 paid. Their eye and their memory are no lefs trained 

 to this practice, than thofe of the waiters at the coffee- 

 houfes are to theirs. The chairs are very bad; of 

 common wood, with ft raw bottoms, frequently worn 

 through and crippled. It is not unufual for a gentle- 

 man to hire three or four of thefe chairs at once, in 

 order to place or lay on each of them fome part of his 

 indolent perfon. On one he fits, on the fecond he lays 

 his feet, on the third his left arm, and on the fourth 

 his right. But he always pays no more than his two 

 fous, to the great damage of the two poor women, to 

 whom it never occurs to take one of them from him, in 

 order to give it to another that wants it. This mode of 

 lying fupinely at one's eafe, you will fuppofe to be not 

 originally french, but more in the englifh ftyle, yet it 

 is in fact merely egoiftic. You may be as weary as you 

 will, and faint with long walking, creep about in fearch 

 of a vacant chair, and caft a petitioning look to thofe 

 who have three too many : all the world will perceive 

 that you would be glad of a chair ; but not a creature 

 will be polite enough to offer you one, till you have 

 made your advances in form. If once you go up to 

 him in the pofrare of a fuppliant, the being, whom 

 you took for an infen/ible brute, is at once all complai- 

 fance, jumps up from his feat, and offers it you in the 

 moft obliging manner in the world, and even does 

 what he can to force you to accept of a couple of 

 others. That wimiing behaviour, which we comprife 

 under the word politenefs, has here been long out of 



falhion, 



