which, with the low-class Frenchmen, comes to much the same thing in the end, the end probably being their expulsion from the drinking-saloon.  Where is the chantant portion of the cafe?  I cannot see,—­perhaps in some inner recess.  With this flash of brilliancy, all sign of life in Reims disappears.  We drive on, jolted and rattled over the cobble stones—­(if not cobble, what are they?  Wobble?)—­and so up to the Lion d’Or.

[Illustration]

I am depressed.  I can’t help it.  It is depressing to be the only prisoners in a black van; I should have said “passengers,” but the sombre character of the omnibus suggests “Black Maria;” it is depressing (I repeat to myself), to be the only two passengers driving through a dead town at night-time, as if we were the very personification of “the dead of night” being taken out in a hearse to the nearest cemetery.  Even DAUBINET feels it, for he is silent, except when he tries to rouse himself by exclaiming “Caramba!” Only twice does he make the attempt, and then, meeting with no response from me, he collapses.  Nor does it relieve depression to be set down in a solemn courtyard, lighted by a solitary gas-lamp.  This in itself would be quite sufficient to make a weary traveller melancholy, without the tolling of a gruesome bell to announce our arrival.  This dispiriting sound seems to affect nobody in the house, except a lengthy young man in a desperate state of unwakefulness, who sleepily resents our arrival in the midst of his first slumber (he must have gone to bed at nine), and drowsily expresses a wish to be informed (for he will not take the trouble to examine into the matter for himself) whether we have any luggage; and this sense of depression becomes aggravated and intensified when no genial Boniface (as the landlord used invariably to be styled in romances of half a century ago) comes forth to greet us with a hearty welcome, and no buxom smiling hostess, is there to order the trim waiting-maid, with polished candlestick, “to show the gentleman his room.”  And, at length, when a hostess, amiable but shivering, does appear, there is still an absence of all geniality; no questions are asked as to what we might like to take in the way of refreshment, there is no fire to cheer us, no warm drinks are suggested, no apparent probability of getting food or liquor, even if we wanted it, which, thank Heaven, we don’t, not having recovered from the last hurriedly-swallowed meal at the railway buffet en route.  Yes, at the “Lion d’Or” at Reims, on this occasion, hic et nunc, is a combination of melancholy circumstances which would have delighted Mark Tapley, and, as far as I know, Mark Tapley only.

“On an occasion like this,” I murmur to myself, having no one else to whom I can murmur it confidentially,—­for DAUBINET, having a knowledge of the house, has disappeared down some mysterious passage in order to examine and choose our rooms,—­“there is, indeed, some merit in being jolly.”