was, so, slinking back as they reached the foot of the hill he got hold of the nigger, and asked what they called his missis.  Massa did not understand, and Mr. Jorrocks, sorely puzzled how to explain, again had recourse to the Manuel du Voyageur; but Madame de Genlis had not anticipated such an occurrence, and there was no dialogue adapted to his situation.  There was a conversation with a lacquey, however, commencing with—­“Are you disposed to enter into my service?” and, in the hopes of hitting upon something that would convey his wishes, he “hark’d forward,” and passing by—­“Are you married?” arrived at—­“What is your wife’s occupation?” “Que fait votre femme?” said he, suiting the action to the word, and pointing to Madame.  Agamemnon showed his ivories, as he laughed at the idea of Jorrocks calling his mistress his wife, and by signs and words conveyed to him some idea of the importance of the personage to whom he alluded.  This he did most completely, for before the diligence came up, Jorrocks pulled the Yorkshireman aside, and asked if he was aware that they were travelling with a real live Countess; “Madame la Countess Benwolio, the nigger informs me,” said he; “a werry grande femme, though what that means I don’t know.”  “Oh, Countesses are common enough here,” replied the Yorkshireman.  “I dare say she’s a stay-maker.  I remember a paint-maker who had a German Baron for a colour-grinder once.”  “Oh,” said Jorrocks, “you are jealous—­you always try to run down my friends; but that won’t do, I’m wide awake to your tricks”; so saying, he shuffled off, and getting hold of the Countess, helped Agamemnon to hoist her into the diligence.  He was most insinuating for the next two hours, and jabbered about love and fox-hunting, admiring the fine, flat, open country, and the absence of hedges and flints; but as neither youth nor age can subsist on love alone, his confounded appetite began to trouble him, and got quite the better of him before they reached Abbeville.  Every mile seemed a league, and he had his head out of the window at least twenty times before they came in sight of the town.  At length the diligence got its slow length dragged not only to Abbeville, but to the sign of the “Fidele Berger”—­or “Fiddle Burgur,” as Mr. Jorrocks pronounced it—­where they were to dine.  The door being opened, out he jumped, and with his Manuel du Voyageur in one hand, and the Countess Benvolio in the other, he pushed his way through the crowd of “pauvres miserables” congregated under the gateway, who exhibited every species of disease and infirmity that poor human nature is liable or heir to, and entered the hotel.  The “Sally manger,” as he called it, was a long brick-floored room on the basement, with a white stove at one end, and the walls plentifully decorated with a panoramic view of the Grand Nation wallopping the Spaniards at the siege of Saragossa.  The diligence being a leetle behind time as usual, the soup was on the table when they entered.  The