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What, Joey? Did I ever see Lonnon Did I ever go to the Wells! »

O rare Joe Grimaldi! Great as was my admiration of the genius of that inimitable clown, never, never did it rise to its true pitch till I had been cast all abroad in a foreign country without any knowledge of its language! To the richness of his fun-to his wonderful agility-to his unique singing and his grotesque dancing, I perhaps had done ample justice-but never, till I had broken down in fifty pantomimical attempts of my own-nay, in twice fifty experiments in dumb show did I properly appreciate his extraordinary power of making himself understood without being on speaking terms with his company. His performance was never, like mine, an Acted Riddle. A living Telegraph, he never failed in conveying his intelligence, but signalled it with such distinctness, that his meaning was visible to the dullest capacity.

And your own attempts in the line, sir? »

Utter failures. Often and often have I gone through as many physical manœuvres as the Englishman in Rabelais, who argued by signs; but constantly without explaining my meaning, and consequently without obtaining my object. From all which, my dear madam, I have derived this moral, that he who visits a foreign country without knowing the language, ought to be prepared beforehand, either to act like a Clown, or to look like a Fool.

יד

CHAPTER XVI.

It was a goodnatured act of honest Hans the coachmanand especially after the treatment of his Schnapps-but seeing the Englishers at a dead lock, and partly guessing at the cause of their distress-he quietly went to the stable, saddled one of his own horses, and rode off in quest of a medical man. Luckily he soon met with the personage he wanted, whom with great satisfaction he ushered into the little, dim, dirty parlour at the Black Eagle, and introduced, as well as he could, to the Foreigners in Distress.

Now the Physician who regularly visited at Lebanon House,

was, of course, one of the Old School; and in correctness of costume and professional formality was scarcely inferior to the immaculate lady who presided over that establishment. There was no mistaking him, like some modern practitioners, for a merchant, or a man about town. He was as carefully made up as a prescription--and between the customary sables, and a Chesterfieldian courtesy, appeared as a Doctor of the old school always used to do-like- a piece of sticking-plaster black, polished, and healing.

Judge then, of the horror and amazement of the Schoolmistress, when she saw before her a great clumsy-built M. D. enveloped in a huge gray cloak, with a cape that fell below his elbows, and his head covered with what she had always understood was a jockey-cap!

Gracious Heaven!-why, he's a horse-doctor!»

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Doctor?-ja wohl, said Hans, with a score of affirmative little nods; and then he added the professional grade of the party, which happened to be one of a most uncouth sound to an English ear.

Ruth, what's a medicine rat? »

Lord knows, answered Miss Ruth, the language is as barbarous as the people! »

In the mean time the Medicin Rath threw off his huge cloak and displayed a costume equally at variance with Miss Crane's notions of the proper uniform of his order. No black coat, no black smalls, no black silk stockings-why, any undertaker in London would have looked more like doctor! His coat was a bright brown frock, his waistcoat as gay and variegated as her own favourite parterre of larkspurs, and his trowsers of plum-colour Of her own accord she would not have called him in-who would?-to a juvenile chicken-pock or a nettlerash-and there he was to treat full grown spasms in an adult

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Je suis medecin, monsieur, à votre service," said the stranger, in French more guttural than nasal, and with a bow to the sick gentleman.

- Mais docteur, hastily interposed Miss Ruth, un docteur à cheval. » 1

This translation of horse-doctor being perfecty unintelligible to the German, he again addressed himself to his patient, and proceeded to feel the pulse.

Papa is subject to spasms in his chest, explained Miss Crane.

"Pshaw-nonsense!» whined the Reverend T. C., they're in my stomach.

They're in his stomach, ". repeated Miss Crane, delicately laying her own hand, by way of explanation, on her sternum. Monsieur à mangé du diner? inquired the Doctor.

"

Only a little beef, said Miss Crane, who «< understood >» French but did not speak it. »

Seulement un petit bœuf, translated Miss Ruth, who spoke French but did not understand it.

Oui-c'est une indigestion, sans doute, said the Doctor.

CHAPTER XVII,

Hark!

It's shameful! abominable! atrocious!"It's a skit on all the schoolmistresses-a wicked libel on the whole profession ! » But my dear Mrs.

Don't dear' me, sir! I consider myself personally insulted, manger un petty boof! As if a governess couldn't speak better French than that! Why, it means eating a -little bullock! »

Precisely. Boeuf, singular, masculine, a bullock or ox.. Ridiculous! And from one of the heads of a seminary! Why, sir, not to speak of myself or the teachers, I have a pupil at Prospect House, and only twelve years of age, who speaks French like a native. »

N

Of where, madam?

Of where, sir ?-why of all France to be sure, and Paris in particular! »

. And with the true accent? »

"Yes, sir, with all the accents-sharp, grave, and circumbendibus-I should have said circumflex, but you have put me in a fluster. French! why it's the corner-stone of female

education. It's universal, sir, from her ladyship down to her cook. We could neither dress ourselves nor our dinner without it! And that the Miss Cranes know French I am morally certain, for I have seen it in their Prospectus. »

No doubt of it, madam. But you are of course aware that there are two sorts-French French and English French→→ and which are as different in quality as the foreign cogniac and the British Brandy."

I know nothing about ardent spirits, sir. And as to the French language, I am acquainted with only one sort, and that is what is taught at Prospect House,-at three guineas a quarter. "

And do all your young ladies, ma'am, turn out such proficients in the language as the little prodigy you have just mentioned ? » ***

a

• Proficient, sir?-they can't help it in my establishment. Let me see-there's Chambaud on Mondays-Wanostrocht on Wednesdays-Telemaque on Fridays, and the French mark every day in the week..

Madam, I have no doubt of the excellence of your system. Nevertheless it is quite true that the younger Miss Crane made use of the very phrase which I have quoted. And what is more, when the doctor called the next morning on his patient he was treated with quite as bad language. For example, when he inquired after her papa

Il est très mauvais, replied Miss Ruth with a desponding shake of her head. Il a avalé son médecin,-et il n'est pas

mieux. »

CHAPTER XVIII.

To return to the sick chamber.

Imagine the Rev. T. C. still sitting and moaning in his un easy chair, the disconsolate Miss Crane helplessly watching the parental grimaces, and the perplexed Miss Ruth standing in a brown study, with her eyes intently fixed on a sort of overgrown child's crib, which occupied one dark corner of the dingy apartment.

-It's very well, she muttered to herself, for a foreign doctor to say laissez le coucher, but where is he to coucher? Not surely in that little crib of a thing, which will only add the cramp in his poor legs to the spasms in his poor stomach! The Mother of Invention was however at her elbow, to suggest an expedient, and in a trice the bedding was dragged from the bedstead and spread upon the floor. During this manœuvre Miss Crane of course only looked on: she had never in her life made a bed, even in the regular way, and the touzling of a shakedown on the bare boards was far too Margery Dawish an operation for her precise nature to be concerned in. Moreover her thoughts were fully occupied by a question infallibly associated with a strange bed, namely, whether it had been aired. A speculation which had already occurred to her sister, but whose more practical mind was busy in contriving how to get at the warming-pan. But in vain she asked for it by name of every German, male or female, in the room, and as vainly she sought for the utensil in the inn kitchen, and quite as vainly might she have hunted for it throughout the village, seeing that no such article had ever been met with by the oldest inhabitant. As a last resource she caught up a walking-stick, and thrusting one end under the blanket, endeavoured pantomimically to imitate a chambermaid in the act of warming a bed. But alas! she took nothing by her motion the Germans only turned towards each other, and shrugging their shoulders and grinning, remarked in their own tongue, What droll people they were those Englishers! »

The sensitive imagination of Miss Crane had in the interim conjured up new and more delicate difficulties and necessities, amongst which the services of a chamberlain were not the least urgent. Who was to put her papa to bed? Who was to undress him? But from this perplexity she was unexpectedly delivered by that humble friend in need, honest

Hans, who no sooner saw the bed free from the walkingstick, than without any bidding, and in spite of the resistance of the patient, he fairly stripped him to his shirt, and then