offee from a little black coffee-pot.
The stove might be dismal-looking to some eyes, not to mine, but it
was indisputably very warm, and there were two gentlemen seated by
it talking in French; impossible to follow their rapid utterance, or
comprehend much of the purport of what they said--yet French, in the
mouths of Frenchmen, or Belgians (I was not then sensible of the horrors
of the Belgian accent) was as music to my ears. One of these gentlemen
presently discerned me to be an Englishman--no doubt from the fashion in
which I addressed the waiter; for I would persist in speaking French in
my execrable South-of-England style, though the man understood English.
The gentleman, after looking towards me once or twice, politely accosted
me in very good English; I remember I wished to God that I could speak
French as well; his fluency and correct pronunciation impressed me for
the first time with a due notion of the cosmopolitan character of the
capital I was in; it was my first experience of that skill in living
languages I afterwards found to be so general in Brussels.

I lingered over my breakfast as long as I could; while it was there
on the table, and while that stranger continued talking to me, I was a
free, independent traveller; but at last the things were removed, the
two gentlemen left the room; suddenly the illusion ceased, reality and
business came back. I, a bondsman just released from the yoke, freed for
one week from twenty-one years of constraint, must, of necessity, resume
the fetters of dependency. Hardly had I tasted the delight of being
without a master when duty issued her stern mandate: "Go forth and seek
another service." I never linger over a painful and necessary task; I
never take pleasure before business, it is not in my nature to do so;
impossible to enjoy a leisurely walk over the city, though I perceived
the morning was very fine, until I had first presented Mr. Hunsden's
letter of introduction, and got fairly on to the track of a new
situation. Wrenching my mind from liberty and delight, I seized my hat,
and forced my reluctant body out of the Hotel de ---- into the foreign
street.

It was a fine day, but I would not look at the blue sky or at the
stately houses round me; my mind was bent on one thing, finding out "Mr.
Brown, Numero --, Rue Royale," for so my letter was addressed. By dint
of inquiry I succeeded; I stood at last at the desired door, knocked,
asked for Mr. Brown, and was admit