he turf, or at the table.

But at length the stage of semi-stupor came over me; the noises became
commixed in my head, and I lost all consciousness so completely, that,
whether from brandy or sickness, I fancied I saw the steward flirting
with the ladies, and the "Honourable Jack" skipping about with a white
apron, uncorking porter bottles, and changing sixpences.

***** *****

The same effect which the announcement of dinner produces on the
stiff party in the drawing-room, is caused by the information of being
alongside the quay, to the passengers of a packet. It is true the
procession is not so formal in the latter as in the former case: the
turbaned dowagers that take the lead in one, would, more than probably,
be last in the other: but what is lost in decorum, is more than made up
in hilarity. What hunting for carpet-bags! what opening and shutting
of lockers! what researches into portmanteaus, to extricate certain
seizable commodities, and stow them away upon the person of the owner,
till at last he becomes an impersonation of smuggling, with lace in
his boots, silk stockings in his hat, brandy under his waistcoat, and
jewelry in the folds of his cravat. There is not an item in the tariff
that might not be demonstrated in his anatomy: from his shoes to his
night-cap, he is a living sarcasm upon the revenue. And, after all,
what is the searching scrutiny of your Quarterly Reviewer, to the
all-penetrating eye of an excise officer? He seems to look into the
whole contents, of your wardrobe before you have unlocked the trunk
"warranted solid leather," and with a glance appears to distinguish the
true man from the knave, knowing, as if by intuition, the precise number
of cambric handkerchiefs that befits your condition in life, and whether
you have transgressed the bounds of your station, by a single bottle.

What admirable training for a novelist would a year or two spent in such
duties afford; what singular views of life; what strange people must
he see; how much of narrative would even the narrow limits of a
hat-box present to him; and how naturally would a story spring from the
rosy-cheeked old gentleman, paying his duty upon a "_pate de fois-gras_"
to his pretty daughter, endeavouring, by a smile, to diminish the tariff
on her French bonnet, and actually captivate a custom-house officer by
the charms of her "_robe a la Victorine_."

The French "_douaniers_," are droll fellows, and are the only ones
I have ever