“Take a 'Saunders,' yer honor, and I 'll tell you.”
“Here, then, here's fippence; and now for the explanation.”
“Molly Crownahon, yer honor, was, like us poor craytures, always grateful and contented wid the Lord's goodness to us, even in taking away our chief comfort and blessing,—the darling up there on the horse! (Ah, 'tis an elegant sate ye have, without stirrups!) And she went one day to say a handful of prayers oyer his grave,—the husband's, ye mind,—and sure if she did, when she knelt down on the grass she sprung up again as quick as she went down, for the nettles was all over the place entirely. 'Bad scran to ye, Peter!' says she, as she rubbed her legs,—'bad scran to ye! living or dead, there was always a sting in ye.'”
As the latter part of this speech was addressed in a tone of apostrophe to the statue of King William, it was received by the assembled crowd with a roar of laughter.
By this time I had entered the house, and only bethought me how little suited was the great hotel of the city to pretensions as humble as mine. It was now, however, too late to retreat, and I entered the coffee-room, carrying my knapsack in my hand. As I passed up the room in search of a vacant table, the looks of astonishment my appearance excited on each side were most palpable evidences that the company considered me as an interloper. While some contented themselves with a stare of steady surprise, others, less guarded in their impertinence, whispered with, and even winked at their neighbors, to attract attention towards me.
Offensive as this unquestionably was, it amazed even more than it annoyed me. In France, such a display of feeling would have been impossible; and the humblest soldier of the army would not have been so received had he deemed fit to enter Beauvilliers' or Véry's.
Whether hurt at this conduct, and consequently more alive to affront from any quarter, or that the waiters participated in the sentiments of their betters, I cannot exactly say; but I certainly thought their manner even less equivocally betrayed the same desire of impertinence. This was not long a mere suspicion on my part; for on inquiring whether I could have a room for the night, the waiter, touching my knapsack, which lay on the ground beside me, with his foot, replied,—
“Is this your luggage, sir?”