I had an unfortunate friend at Boulogne in the year 1865—then and many years before. He lived on the ramparts in the upper town; had put on that shabby military air, capped with a naval couvre-chef (to use a Paris street word that is expressive, as street words often are), which distinguishes the British inhabitant of Boulogne-sur-mer; and was the companion of a group of majors and skippers, sprinkled with commercial men of erratic book-keeping tendencies. He had lost tone. He took me to his club; nothing more than a taproom, reserved to himself and men with whom he would not have exchanged a cigar light in London. The jokes were bad and flat. A laid-up captain of an old London boat—sad old rascal was he!—led the conversation. Who was drunk last night? How did the Major get the key into the lock? Who paid for Todger's last go? "My word," said I, to my friend, who had liquored himself out of one of the snuggest civil berths I know, "how you can spend your time with those blackguards, surpasses my comprehension." They amused him, he said. He must drink with them, or play whist with another set, whose cards—he emphatically added, giving me to understand much thereby—he did not like. It was only for a short time, and he would be quit of them. This was his day dream. My friend was always on the point of getting rid of Boulogne; everything was just settled; and so, buoyed with a hope that never staled, death caught him one summer's afternoon, in the Rue Siblequin, and it was the bibulous sea captain and the very shady major who shambled after him, when he was borne through those pretty Petits Arbres to the English section of the cemetery. Wrecks of many happy families lie around him in that narrow field of rest; and passing through on my state errands, I have thought once or twice, what sermons indeed are there not in the headstones of Boulogne cemetery.
I was with my poor friend in the December of 1865. I was on way home to pass a cheery Christmas with my own people—a luxury which was not often reserved for me—and he had persuaded me to give him a couple of days. It would have been hard to refuse Hanger, who had been gazing across Channel so many weary months, seeing friends off whither he might not follow; and wondering when he should trip down the ladder, and bustle with the steward in the cabin, and ask the sailors whether we shall have a fine passage. To see men and women and children crowding home to their English Christmas from every corner of Europe, and to be left behind to eat plum-pudding in a back parlour of an imitation British tavern, with an obsolete skipper, and a ruined military man, whose family blushed whenever his name was mentioned, was trying. Hanger protested he had no sentiment about Christmas, but he nearly wrung my hand off when he took leave of me.
It was while we were sauntering along the port, pushing hard against a blustering northerly wind, and I was trying to get at the truth about Hanger's affairs, advising him at every turn to grasp the bull by the horns, adopt strong measures, look his creditors full in the face—the common counsel people give their friends, but so seldom apply in their own instance—that we were accosted by a man who had just landed from the Folkestone boat. He wanted a place—yes, a cheap place—where they spoke English and gave English fare. Hanger hastened to refer him to his own British tavern, and, turning to me, said, "Must give Cross a good turn—a useful fellow in an emergency."
I returned with Hanger to the tavern, much against my will; but he insisted I should not give myself airs, but consent to be his guest to the extent of some bitter ale. Cross's new client was before a joint of cold beef, on the merits of which, combined with pickled onions, pickled by the identical hands of Mrs. Cross, Cross could not be prevailed upon to be quiet.
"Not a bad bit of beef," said the stranger, helping himself to a prodigious slice. "Another pint of beer."
Cross carried off the tankard, and returned, still muttering—"Not bad beef, I should think not—nor bad ale neither. Had the beef over from the old country."
The stranger brought his fist with tremendous force upon the table, and roared—"That's right, landlord; that's it; stick to that."
Cross, thus encouraged, would have treated the company to a copious dissertation on the merits of British fare, had not the company chorused him down with—"Now Cross is off! Cross on beef! Cross on beer!"
In a furious passion Cross left the room, rowing that he would be even with "the captain" before the day was over. Hanger considered himself bound to ask the stranger whether he was satisfied with his recommendation.
"Couldn't be better, thankee," the stranger answered; "but the landlord doesn't seem to know much about the place. New comer, I suppose?"