Mystery, in an exquisite manner) gives a little scream; a sound
that seems to come from high up in her precious little head; from
behind her bright little eyebrows. ‘Great Heaven, my pine-apple!
My Angel! It is lost!’ Mystery is desolated. A search made. It
is not lost. Zamiel finds it. I curse him (flying) in the Persian
manner. May his face be turned upside down, and jackasses sit upon
his uncle’s grave!
Now fresher air, now glimpses of unenclosed Down-land with flapping
crows flying over it whom we soon outfly, now the Sea, now
Folkestone at a quarter after ten. ‘Tickets ready, gentlemen!’
Demented dashes at the door. ‘For Paris, sir? No hurry.’
Not the least. We are dropped slowly down to the Port, and sidle
to and fro (the whole Train) before the insensible Royal George
Hotel, for some ten minutes. The Royal George takes no more heed
of us than its namesake under water at Spithead, or under earth at
Windsor, does. The Royal George’s dog lies winking and blinking at
us, without taking the trouble to sit up; and the Royal George’s
‘wedding party’ at the open window (who seem, I must say, rather
tired of bliss) don’t bestow a solitary glance upon us, flying thus
to Paris in eleven hours. The first gentleman in Folkestone is
evidently used up, on this subject.
Meanwhile, Demented chafes. Conceives that every man’s hand is
against him, and exerting itself to prevent his getting to Paris.
Refuses consolation. Rattles door. Sees smoke on the horizon, and
‘knows’ it’s the boat gone without him. Monied Interest
resentfully explains that HE is going to Paris too. Demented
signifies, that if Monied Interest chooses to be left behind, HE
don’t.
‘Refreshments in the Waiting-Room, ladies and gentlemen. No hurry,
ladies and gentlemen, for Paris. No hurry whatever!’
Twenty minutes’ pause, by Folkestone clock, for looking at
Enchantress while she eats a sandwich, and at Mystery while she
eats of everything there that is eatable, from pork-pie, sausage,
jam, and gooseberries, to lumps of sugar. All this time, there is
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a very waterfall of luggage, with a spray of dust, tumbling
slantwise from the pier into the steamboat. All this time,
Demented (who has no business with it) watches it with starting
eyes, fiercely requiring to be shown HIS luggage. When it at last
concludes the cataract, he rushes hotly to refresh – is shouted
after, pursued, jostled, brought back, pitched into the departing
steamer upside down, and caught by mariners disgracefully.
A lovely harvest-day, a cloudless sky, a tranquil sea. The pistonrods
of the engines so regularly coming up from below, to look (as
well they may) at the bright weather, and so regularly almost
knocking their iron heads against the cross beam of the skylight,
and never doing it! Another Parisian actress is on board, attended
by another Mystery. Compact Enchantress greets her sister artist –
Oh, the Compact One’s pretty teeth! – and Mystery greets Mystery.
My Mystery soon ceases to be conversational – is taken poorly, in a
word, having lunched too miscellaneously – and goes below. The
remaining Mystery then smiles upon the sister artists (who, I am
afraid, wouldn’t greatly mind stabbing each other), and is upon the
whole ravished.
And now I find that all the French people on board begin to grow,
and all the English people to shrink. The French are nearing home,
and shaking off a disadvantage, whereas we are shaking it on.
Zamiel is the same man, and Abd-el-Kader is the same man, but each
seems to come into possession of an indescribable confidence that
departs from us – from Monied Interest, for instance, and from me.
Just what they gain, we lose. Certain British ‘Gents’ about the
steersman, intellectually nurtured at home on parody of everything
and truth of nothing, become subdued, and in a manner forlorn; and
when the steersman tells them (not exultingly) how he has ‘been
upon this station now eight year, and never see the old town of
Bullum yet,’ one of them, with an imbecile reliance on a reed, asks
him what he considers to be the best hotel in Paris?