see the various
sights of the city and the neighbourhood, and I attending them. They
soon got tired of sight-seeing, 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 council, and
appeared to care nothing for what people said about him, or called him.
Yes, I forgot, there was one name he would not be called, and that was
'Portuguese.' I once saw Black Jack knock down a coachman, six foot
high, who called him black-faced Portuguese. 'Any name but dat, you
shab,' said Black Jack, who was a little round fellow, of about five feet
two; 'I would not stand to be called Portuguese by Nelson himself.' Jack
was rather fond of talking about Nelson, and hearing people talk about
him, so that it is not improbable that he may have sailed with him; and
with respect to his having been King Pharaoh's butler, all I have to say
is, I am not disposed to give the downright lie to the report. Jack was
always ready to do a kind turn to a poor servant out of place, and has
often been kn