Ramsgate, Broadstairs, and all common watering-places; I have talked of
physicians in the plural; in short, no one who reads that paragraph, but
will suppose that you are a young man of rank and fortune, to whom money
is no object, and who spends hundreds to cure that which might be
effected by a little regularity, and a few doses of ipecacuanha.

_Ansard_. I wish it were so. Nevertheless, I'll travel _en grand
seigneur_--thats more agreeable even in imagination, than being rumbled
in a "_diligence_."

_Barnstaple_. And will produce more respect for your work, I can assure
you. But to proceed. Always, when you leave England, talk about
_hospitality_. The English like it. Have you no relations or friends
in whose opinion you wish to stand well? Public mention in print does
wonders, especially with a copy handsomely bound "from the author."

_Ansard_. Really, Barnstaple, I do not know any one. My poor mother is
in Cumberland, and that is not _en route_. I have a maternal uncle of
the name of Forster, who lives on the road--a rich, old, miserly
bachelor; but I can't say much for his hospitality. I have called upon
him twice, and he has never even asked me to dinner.

_Barnstaple_. Never mind. People like being praised for a virtue which
they do not possess--it may prove a legacy. Say, then, that you quitted
the hospitable roof of your worthy and excellent-hearted relation, Mr
Forster and felt--

_Ansard_. Felt how?

_Barnstaple_. How--why you felt, as he wrung your hand, that there was
a sudden dissolution of the ties of kindred and affection.

_Ansard_. There always has been in that quarter, so my conscience is so
far clear.

_Barnstaple_. You arrive at Dovor (mind you spell it Dovor)--go to bed
tired and reflective--embark early the next morning--a rough passage--

_Ansard_. And sea-sick, of course?

_Barnstaple_. No, Ansard; there I'll give you a proof of my tact--you
shan't be sea-sick.

_Ansard_. But I'm sure I should be.

_Barnstaple_. All travellers are, and all fill up a page or two with
complaints, _ad nauseam_--for that reason sick you shall not be.
Observe--to your astonishment you are not sea-sick: the other passengers
suffer dreadfully; one young dandy puffs furiously at a cigar in
bravado, until he sends it over the side, like an arrow from the
blow-pipe of a South American Indian. Introduce a husband with a pretty
wife--he jealous as a dog, until he is sick as a cat--y