score.

"You missed the little one near the lime-kiln," interrupted the lady.

"No!" said he abruptly, "that's six, there's
seven--eight--nine--ten--eleven--and see, not another."

Upon this, the old lady mounted beside him, and the enumeration began in
duet fashion, but try it how they would, let them take them up hill,
or down hill, along the Rhine first, or commence inland, it was no use,
they could not make the dozen of them.

"It is shameful!" said the gentleman.

"Very disgraceful, indeed!" echoed the lady, as she closed the book,
and crossed her hands before her; while her partner's indignation took a
warmer turn, and he paced the deck in a state of violent agitation.

It was clear that no idea of questioning John Murray's accuracy had ever
crossed their minds. Far from it--the "Handbook" had told them honestly
what they were to have at Ander-nach--"twelve towers built by the
Romans," was part of the bill of fare; and some rascally Duke of Hesse
something, had evidently absconded with a stray castle; they were
cheated, "bamboozled, and bit," inveigled out of their mother-country
under false pretences, and they "wouldn't stand it for no one," and so
they went about complaining to every passenger, and endeavouring, with
all their eloquence, to make a national thing of it, and, determined to
represent the case to the minister, the moment they reached Frankfort.
And now, as the _a propos_ reminds me, what a devil of a life an
English minister has, in any part of the Continent, frequented by his
countrymen.

Let John Bull, from his ignorance of the country, or its language,
involve himself in a scrape with the authorities--let him lose his
passport or his purse--let him forget his penknife or his portmanteau;
straightway he repairs to the ambassador, who, in his eyes, is a cross
between Lord Aberdeen and a Bow-street officer. The minister's functions
are indeed multifarious--now, investigating the advantages of an
international treaty; now, detecting the whereabouts of a missing
cotton umbrella; now, assigning the limits of a territory; now, giving
instructions on the ceremony of presentation to court; now, estimating
the fiscal relations of the navigation of a river; now, appraising the
price of the bridge of a waiter's nose; as these pleasant and harmless
pursuits, so popular in London, of breaking lamps, wrenching off
knockers, and thrashing the police, when practised abroad, require
explanation at the ha