'When the chap laid hold of my bag, "Halloo," says I; "hands off, old boy," says I.
"'Eel Fo!" says he.
'"Eel-pie!" says I. "Blow your Fo," says I, and didn't he grin like an ape? I declare I thought I'd have split when he came again with his "Eel Fo!"'
He was then in his element. Everything new to him was 'a guy,' or 'so rum,' or 'the queerest go you ever.' One of the two declared that, 'in all his experience and in all his life he had never heard sich a lingo as French;' and further, that 'one of their light porters at Bucklersbury would eat half a dozen of them Frenchmen for a bender.'
This strange, grotesque dialogue I repeat textually almost; and, it may be conceived, it was entertaining in a high degree. 'Sheemin dee Fur' was the exact phonetic pronunciation, and the whole scene lingers pleasantly in the memory.
IV.
CALAIS.
ut it is now close on midnight, and we are drawing near land; the eye of the French phare grows fiercer and more glaring, until, close on midnight, the traveller finds the blinding light flashed full on him, as the vessel rushes past the wickerwork pier-head. One or two beings, whose unhappy constitution it is to be miserable and wretched at the very whisper of the word 'sea,' drag themselves up from below, rejoicing that here is Calais. Beyond rises the clustered town confined within its walls. As we glide in between the friendly arms of the openwork pier, the shadowy outlines of the low-lying town take shape and enlarge, dotted with lamps as though pricked over with pin-holes. The fiery clock of the station, that sits up all night from year's end to year's end; the dark figures with tumbrils, and a stray coach waiting; the yellow gateway and drawbridge of the fortress just beyond, and the chiming of carillons in a wheezy fashion from the old watch-tower within, make up a picture.