uage which he only could
translate. The waiter literally flew before the storm, looking back
at the witness with "Mais, mon Dieu, l'Anglais!" The dinner quickly
arrived, and with the soup, Burton recovered his equanimity, though
inveighing against all waiters, and the Triestine in particular." [517]

Another anecdote of this period reveals Burton doing a little smuggling.
One day, we are told, Lady Burton invited the consular chaplain to
accompany her to the quay. Stopping her cab just in front of the Custom
House, she induced her companion to talk to the Custom house officer
while she herself went on board a vessel to see about a case of wine
for her husband. Presently a porter came with the case and some loose
bottles, the later being placed by the chaplain's orders in the bottom
of the carriage. No sooner had this been done than Lady Burton followed,
and stepping into the cab bade the coachman drive off. Up to this moment
the chaplain had kept watch, smoking a cigar, at the window of the
carriage. The officer seeing a case being placed in the carriage was
about to make inquiry just as the coachman whipped up the horse. Lady
Burton smilingly saluted the officer from the window and thus allayed
his suspicions. He returned her nod with a military salute, and was soon
invisible. The speed, however, was too much for the loose bottles, and
the duty was paid in kind, as the wine flowed freely at the bottom of
the cab, while Burton pretended to rate his wife for exposing him to the
charge of smuggling and damaging the reputation of the chaplain. [518]

At Trieste Burton was always popular. The people appreciated his genius
and sympathised with his grievances, and he could truly say of them in
the words of his prototype, Ovid:

"They wish, good souls, to keep me, yet I know
They wish me gone, because I want to go." [519]

Not that he pleased everyone. Far from it, and hereby hangs a delectable
anecdote. Some Englishman at Trieste, who took umbrage on account of the
colossal muddle Burton made with his accounts and the frequency of his
absence, wrote to the Foreign Office something to this effect. "As Sir
Richard Burton is nearly always away from his post and the Vice-Consul
has to do the greater portion of the work, why on earth don't you get
rid of Sir Richard and let the Vice-Consul take his place? I wonder the
Foreign Office can put up with him at all."

To which came the following graceful reply. "Dear Sir,--We