and a couple of ladies’ maids to wait upon them.  First of all, we went to Paris, where we continued three months, the old baronet and the ladies going to see the various sights of the city and the neighbourhood, and I attending them.  They soon got tired of sight-seeing, and of Paris too; and so did I. However, they still continued there, in order, I believe, that the young ladies might lay in a store of French finery.  I should have passed my idle time at Paris, of which I had plenty after the sight-seeing was over, very unpleasantly, but for Black Jack.  Eh! did you never hear of Black Jack?  Ah! if you had ever been an English servant in Paris, you would have known Black Jack; not an English gentleman’s servant who has been at Paris for this last ten years but knows Black Jack and his ordinary.  A strange fellow he was—­of what country no one could exactly say—­for as for judging from speech, that was impossible, Jack speaking all languages equally ill.  Some said he came direct from Satan’s kitchen, and that when he gives up keeping ordinary, he will return there again, though the generally-received opinion at Paris was, that he was at one time butler to King Pharaoh; and that, after lying asleep for four thousand years in a place called the Kattycombs, he was awaked by the sound of Nelson’s cannon at the battle of the Nile, and going to the shore, took on with the admiral, and became, in course of time, ship steward; and that after Nelson’s death he was captured by the French, on board one of whose vessels he served in a somewhat similar capacity till the peace, when he came to Paris, and set up an ordinary for servants, sticking the name of Katcomb over the door, in allusion to the place where he had his long sleep.  But, whatever his origin was, Jack kept his own counsel, and appeared to care nothing for what people said about him, or called him.  Yes, I forgot, there was one name he would not be called, and that was “Portuguese.”  I once saw Black Jack knock down a coachman, six foot high, who called him black-faced Portuguese.  “Any name but dat, you shab,” said Black Jack, who was a little round fellow, of about five feet two; “I would not stand to be called Portuguese by Nelson himself.”  Jack was rather fond of talking about Nelson, and hearing people talk about him, so that it is not improbable that he may have sailed with him; and with respect to his having been King Pharaoh’s butler, all I have to say is, I am not disposed to give the downright lie to the report.  Jack was always ready to do a kind turn to a poor servant out of place, and has often been known to assist such as were in prison, which charitable disposition he perhaps acquired from having lost a good place himself, having seen the inside of a prison, and known the want of a meal’s victuals, all which trials King Pharaoh’s butler underwent, so he may have been that butler; at any rate, I have known positive conclusions come to on no better premisses, if indeed as good.  As for the story of his coming