is full time I should get back to No. 82, and make
my appearance below stairs;" though in what part of the building my room
lay, and how I was to reach it without my clothes, I had not the
slightest idea. A blanket is an excessively comfortable article of
wearing apparel when in bed, but as a walking costume is by no means
convenient or appropriate; while to making a sorti en sauvage, however
appropriate during the night, there were many serious objections if done
"en plein jour," and with the whole establishment awake and active; the
noise of mopping, scrubbing, and polishing, which is eternally going
forward in a foreign inn amply testified there was nothing which I could
adopt in my present naked and forlorn condition, save the bizarre and
ridiculous dress of the postillion, and I need not say the thought of so
doing presented nothing agreeable. I looked from the narrow window out
upon the tiled roof, but without any prospect of being heard if I called
ever so loudly.

The infernal noise of floor-cleansing, assisted by a Norman peasant's
"chanson du pays," the time being well marked by her heavy sabots, gave
even less chance to me within; so that after more than half an hour
passed in weighing difficulties, and canvassing plans, upon donning the
blue and yellow, and setting out for my own room without delay, hoping
sincerely, that with proper precaution, I should be able to reach it
unseen and unobserved.

As I laid but little stress upon the figure I should make in my new
habiliments, it did not cause me much mortification to find that the
clothes were considerably too small, the jacket scarcely coming beneath
my arms, and the sleeves being so short that my hands and wrists
projected beyond the cuffs like two enormous claws; the leathers were
also limited in their length, and when drawn up to a proper height,
permitted my knees to be seen beneath, like the short costume of a
Spanish Tauridor, but scarcely as graceful; not wishing to encumber
myself in the heavy and noisy masses of wood, iron, and leather, they
call "les bottes forts," I slipped my feet into my slippers, and stole
gently from the room. How I must have looked at the moment I leave my
reader to guess, as with anxious and stealthy pace I crept along the low
gallery that led to the narrow staircase, down which I proceeded, step by
step; but just as I reached the bottom, perceived a little distance from
me, with her back turned towards me, a short, s