Poor devil, thought I, thou art going into a bitter bad line of business; and the hundredth share which I had taken in the boyish persecutions of my own French master—an emigré of the old noblesse—smote violently on my conscience. At Edmonton the coach stopped. The coachman alighted, pulled the bell of a mansion inscribed in large letters, Vespasian House; and deposited the foreigner’s trunks and boxes on the footpath. The English classical usher stepped briskly out, and deposited a shilling in the coachman’s anticipatory hand. Monsieur followed the example, and with some precipitation prepared to enter the gate of the fore-garden, but the driver stood in the way.
“I want another shilling,” said the coachman.
“You agreed to take a shilling a-head,” said the English master.
“You said you would take one shilling for my head,” said the French master.
“It’s for the luggage,” said the coachman.
The Frenchman seemed thunderstruck; but there was no help for it. He pulled out a small weasel-bellied, brown silk purse, but there was nothing in it save a medal of Napoleon. Then he felt his breast-pockets, then his side-pockets, and then his waistcoat-pockets; but they were all empty, excepting a metal snuff-box, and that was empty too. Lastly he felt the pockets in the flaps of his coat, taking out a meagre would-be white handkerchief, and shaking it; but not a dump. I rather suspect he anticipated the result—but he went thro’ the operations seriatim, with the true French gravity. At last he turned to his companion, with a “Mistare Barbiere, be as good to lend me one shilling.”
Mr. Barber, thus appealed to, went through something of the same ceremony. Like a blue-bottle cleaning itself, he passed his hands over his breast—round his hips, and down the outside of his thighs,—but the sense of feeling could detect nothing like a coin.
“You agreed for a shilling, and you shall have no more,” said the man with empty pockets.