I told you before, they were very
amiable, proposed to our governor a travelling expedition abroad. The
old baronet consented, though young master was much against it, saying
they would all be much better at home. As the girls persisted, however,
he at last withdrew his opposition, and even promised to follow them as
soon as his parliamentary duties would permit; for he was just got into
Parliament, and, like most other young members, thought that nothing
could be done in the House without him. So the old gentleman and the two
young ladies set off, taking me with them, and a couple of ladies' maids
to wait upon them. First of all, we went to Paris, where we continued
three months, the old baronet and the ladies going to see the various
sights of the city and the neighbourhood, and I attending them. They
soon got tired of sightseeing, and of Paris too; and so did I. However,
they still continued there, in order, I believe, that the young ladies
might lay in a store of French finery. I should have passed my idle time
at Paris, of which I had plenty after the sight-seeing was over, very
unpleasantly, but for Black Jack. Eh! did you never hear of Black Jack?
Ah! if you had ever been an English servant in Paris, you would have
known Black Jack; not an English gentleman's servant who has been at
Paris for this last ten years but knows Black Jack and his ordinary. A
strange fellow he was--of what country no one could exactly say--for as
for judging from speech, that was impossible, Jack speaking all languages
equally ill. Some said he came direct from Satan's kitchen, and that
when he gives up keeping ordinary, he will return there again, though the
generally-received opinion at Paris was, that he was at one time butler
to King Pharaoh; and that, after lying asleep for four thousand years in
a place called the Kattycombs, he was awaked by the sound of Nelson's
cannon at the battle of the Nile, and going to the shore, took on with
the admiral, and became, in course of time, ship steward; and that after
Nelson's death he was captured by the French, on board one of whose
vessels he served in a somewhat similar capacity till the peace, when he
came to Paris, and set up an ordinary for servants, sticking the name of
Katcomb over the door, in allusion to the place where he had his long
sleep. But, whatever his origin was, Jack kept his own counsel, and
appeared to care nothing for what people said about him, or called him.