met who descend from the important gravity of their
profession, and venture upon a joke. I shall never forget entering
Valenciennes late one night, with a large "Diligence" party, among which
was a corpulent countryman of my own, making his first continental tour.
It was in those days when a passport presented a written portrait of the
bearer; when the shape of your nose, the colour of your hair, the cut of
your beard, and the angle of incidence of your eyebrow, were all noted
down and commented on, and a general summing up of the expression of
your features, collectively, appended to the whole; and you went forth
to the-world with an air "mild," or "military;" "feeble," "fascinating,"
or "ferocious," exactly as the foreign office deemed it. It was in those
days, I say, when, on entering the fortress of Valenciennes, the door
of the "Diligence" was rudely thrown open, and, by the dim nicker of a
lamp, we beheld a moustached, stern-looking fellow, who rudely demanded
our passports. My fat companion, suddenly awakened from his sleep,
searched his various pockets with all the trepidation of a new
traveller, and at length, produced his credentials, which he handed,
with a polite bow, to the official. Whatever the nature of the
description I cannot say, but it certainly produced the most striking
effect on the passport officers, who laughed loud and long as they read
it over.

"_Descendez, Monsieur_" said the chief of the party, in a tone of stern
command.

"What does he say?" said the traveller, in a very decided western
accent.

"You must get out, sir" said he.

"Tare-an-ages," said Mr. Moriarty, "what's wrong?"

After considerable squeezing, for he weighed about twenty stone, he
disengaged himself from the body of the "Diligence," and stood erect
upon the ground. A second lantern was now produced, and while one of the
officers stood on either side of him, with a light beside his face, a
third read out the clauses of the passport, and compared the description
with the original. Happily, Mr. Moriarty's ignorance of French saved him
from the penalty of listening to the comments which were passed upon
his "_nez retrousse_" "_bouche ouverte_" &c.; but what was his surprise
when, producing some yards of tape, they proceeded to measure him round
the body, comparing the number of inches his circumference made, with
the passport.

[Illustration: 032]

"_Quatre-vingt-dix pouces_," said the measurer, looking at the documen