your gratitude for all these mercies?"

"Ah, sure if he did," said the old crone, roused at length by the
importunity of the questioner--"sure if he did, doesn't he take it
out o' me in the corns?"

CHAPTER XLIV.

A REMINISCENCE OF THE EAST.

The breakfast-table assembled around it the three generations of men who
issued from the three subdivisions of the diligence, and presented that
motley and mixed assemblage of ranks, ages, and countries, which forms
so very amusing a part of a traveller's experience.

First came the "haute aristocratie" of the coupe, then the middle class
of the interieure, and lastly, the tiers etat of the rotonde, with its
melange of Jew money-lenders, under-officers and their wives, a Norman
nurse with a high cap and a red jupe; while, to close the procession, a
German student descended from the roof, with a beard, a blouse, and a
meerschaum. Of such materials was our party made up; and yet, differing
in all our objects and interests, we speedily amalgamated into a very
social state of intimacy, and chatted away over our breakfast with much
good humour and gaiety. Each person of the number seeming pleased at the
momentary opportunity of finding a new listener, save my tall companion
of the coupe. He preserved a dogged silence, unbroken by even a chance
expression to the waiter, who observed his wants and supplied them by a
species of quick instinct, evidently acquired by practice. As I could
not help feeling somewhat interested about the hermit-like attachment he
evinced for solitude, I watched him narrowly for some time, and at length
as the "roti" made its appearance before him, after he had helped himself
and tasted it, he caught my eye fixed upon him, and looking at me
intently for a few seconds, he seemed to be satisfied in some passing
doubt he laboured under, as he said with a most peculiar shake of the
head--"No mangez, no mangez cela."

"Ah," said I, detecting in my friend's French his English origin, "you
are an Englishman I find."

"The devil a doubt of it, darlin'," said he half testily.

"An Irishman, too--still better," said I.

"Why then isn't it strange that my French always shows me to be English,
and my English proves me Irish? It's lucky for me there's no going
farther any how."

Delighted to have thus fallen upon a "character," as the Irishman
evidently appeared, I moved my chair towards his; and finding, however,
he was not half pleased at the manner i