THE BREACH. 
83 
in consequence of an indiscreet question in Hindoo by the 
major, that we had to work ourselves out of the crowd by 
main force. “Leave it all to me,” said our English friend, 
“ I’ll find somebody presently w T ho speaks French. Ha ! that 
man has a French look. I say, monsieur, monsieur !” The 
man stopped. “ Parlez vous Franpais, monsieur ?” “ Oui, 
monsieur .” “ I told you so,” said our friend, turning to us 
triumphantly; u see what perseverance will do;” and then 
he propounded a series of questions to the strange gentleman 
concerning the location of the wall, interrupted at every 
pause by “ Oui, monsieur , oui , oui” “ Now, sir, can you tell 
us where it is? (still in French). "What language the indi¬ 
vidual addressed spoke in reply it would be impossible to say ; 
but it was brief and to the point, for he immediately con¬ 
ducted us round another corner and showed us the diligence 
office, after which he touched his hat politely, and walked on. 
Mr. Pipkins regarded the sign upon the diligence office with 
ineffable disgust, and then casting a ferocious look after the 
stranger, struck his stick heavily upon the pavement, and said : 
“ Damme, if that’s French ! He doesn’t understand the lan¬ 
guage !” For some time previously I had observed a sus¬ 
picious-looking fellow dodging from corner to corner in our 
rear, who now came up touching his hat respectfully. “ Gem- 
men,” said he, “me speakee Inglees. What you want?” 
Our friend explained in full, evidently much relieved at this 
sudden accession to his cause. “ Yes, yes, me know,” replied 
the man. “ Come on.” We followed with a good will, cer¬ 
tain that our troubles were at last at an end ; and really I 
began to feel quite interested in the wall from the sheer force 
of disappointment. We had proceeded some distance through 
a labyrinth of streets, when Mr. Pipkins, who was engaged in 
a hopeless attempt to extract additional information out of 
the guide concerning the wall, stopped short, and indignantly 
uttered these words : “ You infernal rascal, that’s not what 
we want!” Now, the full force of this violent language was 
of course lost upon the major and myself. The only words 
we overheard were—“just seventeen”—“ arrived from Paris 
yesterday,” which of course left us in a most painful state of 
