teward. We are outside the pier. Your correspondent has no emotions. He
sees the cliffs of Albion diminish without a sigh--a regret. He does not
feel the poetry of the situation. He omits to quote _Childe Harold_ to a
gentleman's servant who kindly helps him on with a third great-coat. He
is perhaps brutal; yet he is not without some remains of human
sentiment. The greatest pleasure man can enjoy is to contemplate the
misfortunes of others. Accordingly, he visits the sick. The cabin has
become a hospital--a Pandemonium. To stay there is impossible, he
returns to the deck. Alas! the furry exiles are paying a bitter tribute
to the ocean. The happier ancients could propitiate NEPTUNE with a
horse. Now-a-days he has a fancy for human sacrifices, and will only lie
appeased by a portion of ourselves. HOOKS-AND-EYES has lost his
disposition to joke, regrets the brandy, curses the cheroot, and sits
down in gloomy silence. The youngster is jollier than ever, and chaffs
his discomfited friend, whom he pronounces in private an awful snob.

Meanwhile the swift steamship cuts through the hissing waves. A south
wind springs up, and we enjoy a pleasant variety of motion. To the
original regular dip and rise which tried so many, is now added a
jerking roll, occasionally amounting to a lurch. "_Ah ciel!_" gasp the
expiring Gauls. "Steward, steward!" yells HOOKS-AND-EYES, as he flies
across the deck seemingly by some supernatural impulse, and clings
convulsively to the lee bulwarks. "And they said we should have a good
passage," complain half a dozen other wretched beings, who make up a
party to occupy the same position. The philosopher and his young friend
pace the deck as well as they can, and hold sweet conversation. The
artless lad details his ancient lineage, his past at Eton, his future at
Oxford, and the Continental tour which, illustrated by the mild wisdom
of JENKINS, M.A., is to fill up the interval between the two. These
pleasant words make short the voyage. "Mark, my youthful acquaintance,"
says the philosopher, "mark the abject misery of these men. There are
Britons among them, but the first, the feeblest of them all are French.
Rejoice, therefore, for this malady is the Guardian Genius of our
shores. Here are coast-defences more stubborn than Martello towers, more
terrible than militia men, more vigilant even than a Channel fleet.
Figure to yourself an army of red-trowsered invaders in this state
offering to land on English