window, Monsieur yawned, stretched, rubbed his
eyes, spat and spoke--"Sacre nom de cochon! Conducteur! conducteur! vous
m'avez donc oublie! il fallait me faire descendre la bas!--la bas! la!
la! nom de Dieu!"--"Plait-il?" said the _conducteur_ as he came round to
the door, taking his pipe out of his mouth, "qu'est ce que vous voulez,
M'sieur?"--"Je vous avais dit qu'il fallait me faire descendre chez M.
Dubois, et maintenant nous voila a----ou sommes-nous, par exemple?"
"Imbecile! il y a encore trois bonnes lieues a la Pissotte!" and the
angry _conducteur_, who had been roused from his sleep, and climbed over
and round the lumbering vehicle to the back-door, now climbed round and
over again to the _banquette_. The sixth passenger squeezed himself back
into the corner, and resumed:--"M. Dubois ne m'attend pas: d'ailleurs je
ne le connais pas: c'est egal; je me nicherai chez lui pour une huitaine
de jours: j'y ferai de bonnes affaires." All this was of course as
unintelligible to the other passengers as it would have been
uninteresting if we had cared to listen to him:--"Puisqu'il peut y avoir
des dames," he went on, "il faut faire ma toilette." So saying, he took
off his pocket-handkerchief from his head, and wiped his face well with
it, yawned a good deal, and spat incontinently; opened his coat, spread
back and jerked down the lapels; shoved his fingers comb-fashion and
comb-colour through his matted hair till it stood up _a la_ Bugaboo; and
then looked round for admiration. "Ah! je l'avais oublie!" he exclaimed.
Upon this he pulled out a large shabby green pocket-book from his coat;
took off a greasy black stock, displaying a collarless shirt and neck,
upon the tinge of which it would be needless to descant, and then
extracting from the pocket-book two curvilinear pieces of dirty white
paper, which had been folded more than once, and had an ink spot or two
on their surface, applied them to his chin, holding their corners in his
mouth, buckled on his stock again over them, adjusted these pseudo
collars by aid of his watch-back, grinned a mile of approbation, and
exclaimed, "Me voila propre!"

It is not enough to be _propre_ in one article of dress only: you must
preserve a certain aesthetical _tournure_, or else set yourself down
among the frampy multitude for ever. This must be our apology, dear
reader, for thus detaining your attention, and for setting before you
"things unattempted yet in prose or rhyme," which may