Into the midst of this assemblage I soon thrust myself, and, borne upon the current, at length reached a small back parlour, filled also with people; a door opening into another small room in the front, showed a similar mob there, with the addition of a small elderly man, in a bag wig and spectacles, very much begrimed with snuff, and speaking in a very choleric tone to the various applicants for passports, who, totally ignorant of French, insisted upon interlarding their demands with an occasional stray phrase, making a kind of tesselated pavement of tongues, which would have shamed Babel.

Nearest to the table at which the functionary sat, stood a mustachoed gentleman, in a blue frock and white trowsers, a white hat jauntily set upon one side of his head, and primrose gloves.

He cast a momentary glance of a very undervaluing import upon the crowd around him, and then, turning to the Consul, said in a very soprano tone-- "Passport, monsieur!" "Que voulez vous que je fasse," replied the old Frenchman, gruffly.
"Je suis j'ai--that is, donnez moi passport." "Where do you go ?" replied the Consul.
"Calai." "Comment diable, speak Inglis, an I understan' you as besser.

Your name ?" "Lorraine Snaggs, gentilhomme." "What age have you ?--how old ?" "Twenty-two." "C'est ca," said the old consul, flinging the passport across the table, with the air of a man who thoroughly comprehended the applicant's pretension to the designation of gentilhomme Anglais.
"Will you be seated ma'mselle ?" said the polite old Frenchman, who had hitherto been more like a bear than a human being--"Ou allez vous donc; where to, ma chere ?" "To Paris, sir." "By Calais ?" "No, sir; by Boulogne"-- "C'est bon; quel age avez vous.

What old, ma belle ?" "Nineteen, sir, in June." "And are you alone, quite, eh ?" "No, sir, my little girl." "Ah! your leetel girl--c'est fort bien--je m'appercois; and your name ?" "Fanny Linwood, sir." "C'est fini, ma chere, Mademoiselle Fanni Linwood," said the old man, as he wrote down the name.
"Oh, sir, I beg your pardon, but you have put me down Mademoiselle, and -- and--you see, sir, I have my little girl." "A c'est egal, mam'selle, they don't mind these things in France--au plaisir de vous voir.