As he was madly eager to learn the story of my life, and as I was bent on my departure by the morning mail for Genoa, we agreed to meet at an hour when the household had retired to bed; meanwhile, he was to charge himself with the office of making an explanation to the family, and informing them that matters of urgency required my presence at Paris without delay. This agreed upon, we separated.
The entire night we passed in talking, for he insisted upon hearing my adventures from the very hour we had parted company in Dublin, down to the moment we were then seated together. It was evident, at times, from the tone of questioning, that he accepted several of my statements at least as doubtful; but gradually, as he discovered my acquaintance with various languages, the knowledge I possessed of different remote countries, their habits and natural productions, this incredulity gave way; and when finally I produced the letters of the Havannah banker, with the receipts for my instalments, he showed that every shade of hesitation had vanished, and that he no longer entertained a doubt of my veracity.
As the hour of separating drew nigh, he turned the subject to my own immediate requirements; and although I assured him that my ring, which I had already disposed of, was sufficient for all immediate wants, he insisted upon my accepting a loan of one hundred dollars, to be repaid, as he himself said, “when I resumed my countship.” These were his parting words as I ascended to the roof of the diligence.
CHAPTER XXXI A NEW WALK IN PROGRESSIVE LIFE
I will not trespass on my reader's patience with the details of my journey, nor ask him to form acquaintance with any of those pleasant travelling companions whose whims, caprices, and merry fancies lightened the road. The company of a diligence is a little world in all its features of selfishness, apathy, trustfulness, credulity, and unbelief. It has its mock humilities and absurd pretensions even more glaringly displayed than every-day life exhibits them. Enough, then, if I say ours were fair specimens of the class; and when, on arriving at the Messageries Royales, the heavy “conveniency” deposited us in the court, we shook hands all round ere separating, like people who were well pleased when together, but yet not broken-hearted at the thought of parting.
And now I found myself at Paris, that glorious capital, whose very air is the champagne of atmospheres, and where, amid the brilliant objects so lavishly thrown on every side, even the poor man forgets his poverty, and actually thinks he has some share in the gorgeous scene around him. I heaved one heavy sigh from the very bottom of my heart as I thought what might have been the condition in which I could once have rolled along these same streets; and with this brief tribute to the past, I trudged along towards the Embassy. All my hope lay in the prospect of an interference on the part of the English Government, and the demand of an indemnification for my loss.
After some little delay, and a slight catechizing on the part of a bulky porter in scarlet livery, I was admitted to a room where a number of people, chiefly couriers and “Laquais de Place,” were assembled, to obtain signatures or passports, and who were summoned from time to time to enter an inner chamber where the official sat. My turn came at length, and, with a heart almost swelling to suffocation, I entered.
“For England, I suppose,” said a pale young gentleman, with black moustaches, not looking up from the table, where he sat reading his “Galignaui.”