The man of wisdom stood mildly motionless a moment, with a look of sagacious, humane meditation on his face, as if pondering upon the chances of the important enterprise:  one which, perhaps, might in the sequel affect the weal or woe of nations yet to come.  Then suddenly clapping his hand to his capacious coat-pocket, dragged out a bit of cork with some hen’s feathers, and hurrying to his room, took out his knife, and proceeded to whittle away at a shuttlecock of an original scientific construction, which at some prior time he had promised to send to the young Duchess D’Abrantes that very afternoon.

Safely reaching Calais, at night, Israel stepped almost from the diligence into the packet, and, in a few moments, was cutting the water.  As on the diligence he took an outside and plebeian seat, so, with the same secret motive of preserving unsuspected the character assumed, he took a deck passage in the packet.  It coming on to rain violently, he stole down into the forecastle, dimly lit by a solitary swinging lamp, where were two men industriously smoking, and filling the narrow hole with soporific vapors.  These induced strange drowsiness in Israel, and he pondered how best he might indulge it, for a time, without imperilling the precious documents in his custody.

But this pondering in such soporific vapors had the effect of those mathematical devices whereby restless people cipher themselves to sleep.  His languid head fell to his breast.  In another moment, he drooped half-lengthwise upon a chest, his legs outstretched before him.

Presently he was awakened by some intermeddlement with his feet.  Starting to his elbow, he saw one of the two men in the act of slyly slipping off his right boot, while the left one, already removed, lay on the floor, all ready against the rascal’s retreat Had it not been for the lesson learned on the Pont Neuf, Israel would instantly have inferred that his secret mission was known, and the operator some designed diplomatic knave or other, hired by the British Cabinet, thus to lie in wait for him, fume him into slumber with tobacco, and then rifle him of his momentous dispatches.  But as it was, he recalled Doctor Franklin’s prudent admonitions against the indulgence of premature suspicions.

“Sir,” said Israel very civilly, “I will thank you for that boot which lies on the floor, and, if you please, you can let the other stay where it is.”

“Excuse me,” said the rascal, an accomplished, self-possessed practitioner in his thievish art; “I thought your boots might be pinching you, and only wished to ease you a little.”

“Much obliged to ye for your kindness, sir,” said Israel; “but they don’t pinch me at all.  I suppose, though, you think they wouldn’t pinch you either; your foot looks rather small.  Were you going to try ’em on, just to see how they fitted?”

“No,” said the fellow, with sanctimonious seriousness; “but with your permission I should like to try them on, when we get to Dover.  I couldn’t try them well walking on this tipsy craft’s deck, you know.”