, probably for the last thousand years,
have made Calais their headquarters. The general name for him was the
_Roi de Calais_. An anecdote of his pleasantry in almsgiving reached the
public ear. A French beggar asked him for a two-sous piece. "I don't
know the coin," said Brummell, "never having had one; but I suppose you
mean a franc. There, take it." His former celebrity had also spread far
and wide among the population. A couple of English workmen in one of the
factories of the town, one day followed a gentleman who had a
considerable resemblance to Brummell. He heard one of them say to the
other, "Now, I'll bet you a pot that's him." Shortly after, one of them
strolled up to him, with, "Beg pardon, sir--hope no offence, but we two
have got a bet--now, a'n't you George Ring the Bell?" Brummell's habits
of flirtation did not desert him in France; and in one instance he paid
such marked attention to a young English lady, that a friend was deputed
to enquire his purposes. Here Brummell's knowledge of every body did him
good service. The deputy on this occasion having once figured as the
head of a veterinary hospital, or some such thing, but being then in the
commissariat,--"Why, Vulcan!" exclaimed Brummell, "what a humbug you
must be to come and lecture me on such a subject! You, who were for two
years at hide-and-seek to save yourself from being shot by Sir T. S. for
running off with one of his daughters." "Dear me," said the astonished
friend, "you have touched a painful chord; I will have no more to do
with this business." The business died a natural death.

His dressing-table was _recherche_. Its _batterie de toilette_ was
curious, complete, and of silver; one part of it being a spitting-dish,
he always declaring that "it was impossible to _spit in clay_." His
"making up" every morning occupied two hours. When he first arrived in
Caen he carried a cane, but often exchanged it for a brown silk
umbrella, which was always protected by a silk case of remarkable
accuracy of fit--the handle surmounted by an ivory head of George the
Fourth, in well-curled wig and gracious smile. In the street he _never_
took off his hat to any one, not even to a lady; for it would have been
difficult to replace it in the same position, it having been put on with
peculiar care. We finish by stating, that he always had the _soles_ of
his boots blackened as well as the upper leathers; his reason for this
being, that, in the usual negligence of