I have always observed, when there is as much sour as sweet in a
compliment, that an Englishman is eternally at a loss within
himself, whether to take it, or let it alone: a Frenchman never
is: Mons. Dessein made me a bow.
C'est bien vrai, said he. - But in this case I should only exchange
one disquietude for another, and with loss: figure to yourself, my
dear Sir, that in giving you a chaise which would fall to pieces
before you had got half-way to Paris, - figure to yourself how much
I should suffer, in giving an ill impression of myself to a man of
honour, and lying at the mercy, as I must do, d'un homme d'esprit.
The dose was made up exactly after my own prescription; so I could
not help tasting it, - and, returning Mons. Dessein his bow, without
more casuistry we walk'd together towards his Remise, to take a
view of his magazine of chaises.
IN THE STREET. CALAIS.
It must needs be a hostile kind of a world, when the buyer (if it
be but of a sorry post-chaise) cannot go forth with the seller
thereof into the street to terminate the difference betwixt them,
but he instantly falls into the same frame of mind, and views his
conventionist with the same sort of eye, as if he was going along
with him to Hyde-park corner to fight a duel. For my own part,
being but a poor swordsman, and no way a match for Monsieur
Dessein, I felt the rotation of all the movements within me, to
which the situation is incident; - I looked at Monsieur Dessein
through and through - eyed him as he walk'd along in profile, - then,
en face; - thought like a Jew, - then a Turk, - disliked his wig, -
cursed him by my gods, - wished him at the devil.
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