"Here they took a subscription of our persons, and one of the men said that Lavinia had a jolly manton, at which the clerks laughed, and several of them said she was a jolly feel, which I afterwards understood meant a pretty girl—I misunderstood it for fee, which, being in a public office, was a very natural mistake.
"We went then to a place they call the Do-Anne, where they took away the pole of my baruch—I was very angry at this, but they told me we were to travel in Lemonade with a biddy, which I did not understand, but Mr. Fulmer was kind enough to explain it to me as we went to the hotel, which is in a narrow street, and contains a garden and court-yard.
"I left it to Mr. Fulmer to order dinner, for I felt extremely piquant, as the French call it, and a very nice dinner it was—we had a purey, which tasted very like soup—one of the men said it was made from leather, at least so I understood, but it had quite the flavour of hare; I think it right here to caution travellers against the fish at this place, which looks very good, but which I have reason to believe is very unwholesome, for one of the waiters called it poison while speaking to the other—the fish was called marine salmon, but it looked like veal cutlets.
"They are so fond of Buonaparte still that they call the table-cloths Naps, in compliment to him—this I remarked to myself, but said nothing about it to anybody else, for fear of consequences.
"One of the waiters, who spoke English, asked me if I would have a little Bergami, which surprised me, till Mr. Fulmer said it was the wine he was handing about, when I refused it, preferring to take a glass of Bucephalus.
"When we had dined we had some coffee, which is here called cabriolet; after which Mr. Fulmer asked if we would have a chasse, which I thought meant a hunting party, and said I was afraid of going out into the fields at that time of night—but I found chasse was a lickure called cure a sore (from its healing qualities, I suppose), and very nice it was—after we had taken this, Mr. Fulmer went out to look at the jolly feels in the shops of Callous, which I thought indiscreet in the cold air; however, I am one as always overlooks the little piccadillies of youth.
"When we went to accoucher at night, I was quite surprised in not having a man for a chambermaid; and if it had not been for the entire difference of the style of furniture, the appearance of the place, and the language and dress of the attendants, I never should have discovered that we had changed our country in the course of the day.
"In the morning early we left Callous with the Lemonade, which is Shafts, with a very tall post-boy, in a violet-coloured jacket, trimmed with silver; he rode a little horse, which is called a biddy, and wore a nobbed tail, which thumped against his back like a patent self-acting knocker. We saw, near Bullion, Buonaparte's conservatory, out of which he used to look at England in former days.
"Nothing remarkable occurred till we met a courier a travelling, Mr. Fulmer said, with despatches; these men were called couriers immediately after the return of the Bonbons, in compliment to the London newspaper, which always wrote in their favour. At Montrule, Mr. Fulmer shewed me Sterne's Inn, and there I saw Mr. Sterne himself, a standing at the door, with a French cocked hat upon his head, over a white night-cap. Mr. Fulmer asked if he had any becauses in his house; but he said no: what they were I do not know to this moment.
"It is no use describing the different places on our rout, because Paris is the great object of all travellers, and therefore I shall come to it at once—it is reproached by a revenue of trees; on the right of which you see a dome, like that of St. Paul's, but not so large. Mr. Fulmer told me it was an invalid, and it did certainly look very yellow in the distance; on the left you perceive Mont Martyr, so called from the number of windmills upon it.