e instincts of my nature, and I can say I feel myself his friend
already.'"

As I worked at my little theory, with all the ingenuity I knew how to
employ on such occasions, I perceived that he had put up his newspaper,
and was gathering together, in old traveller fashion, the odds and ends
of his baggage.

"Here we are," said he, as we glided into the station, "and in capital
time too. Don't trouble yourself about your traps. My steward will be
here presently, and take all your things down to the packet along with
my own. Our steam is up; so lose no time in getting aboard."

I had never less inclination to play the loiterer. The odious _attache_
was still in my neighborhood, and until I had got clear out of his reach
I felt anything but security. _He_, I remembered, was for Calais, so
that, by taking the Ostend boat, I was at once separating myself from
his detestable companionship. I not only, therefore, accepted the
captain's offer to leave all my effects to the charge of the steward;
but no sooner had the train stopped, than I sprang out, hastened through
the thronged station, and made at all my speed for the harbor.

Is it to increase the impediments to quitting one's country, and, by
interposing difficulties, to give the exile additional occasion to think
twice about expatriating himself, that the way from the railroad to the
dock at Dover is made so circuitous and almost impossible to discover?
Are these obstacles invented in the spirit of those official details
which make banns on the church-door, and a delay of three weeks precede
a marriage, as though to say, Halt, impetuous youth, and bethink you
whither you are going? Are these amongst the wise precautions of a truly
paternal rule? If so, they must occasionally even transcend the original
intention, for when I reached the pier, the packet had already begun to
move, and it was only by a vigorous leap that I gained the paddle-box,
and thus scrambled on board.

"Like every one of you," growled out my weather-beaten friend; "always
within an ace of being left behind."

"Every one of us!" muttered I. "What can he have known of the Potts
family, that he dares to describe us thus characteristically? And who
ever presumed to call us loiterers or sluggards?"

"Step down below, as I told you," whispered he. "It's a dirty night, and
we shall have bucketing weather outside." And with this friendly hint I
at once complied, and stole down the ladder. "Show that gent