man who has a wife and sisters, or children at home, say 'Go on' to such disgusting ribaldry as this? Do you dare, sir, to call yourself a gentleman, and to say that you hold the King's commission, and to sit down amongst Christians and men of honor, and defile the ears of young boys with this wicked balderdash?"

"Why do you bring young boys here, old boy?" cries a voice of the malcontents.

"Why? Because I thought I was coming to a society of gentlemen," cried out the indignant Colonel. "Because I never could have believed that Englishmen could meet together and allow a man, and an old man, so to disgrace himself. For shame, you old wretch! Go home to your bed, you hoary old sinner! And for my part, I'm not sorry that my son should see, for once in his life, to what shame and degradation and dishonor drunkenness and whisky may bring a man. Never mind the change, sir!-Curse the change!" says the Colonel, facing the amazed waiter. "Keep it till you see me in this place again; which will be never-by George, never!" And shouldering his stick, and scowling round at the company of scared bacchanalians, the indignant gentleman stalked away, his boy after him.

Clive seemed rather shamefaced; but I fear the rest of the company looked still more foolish.

"Aussi que diable venait-il faire dans cette galère?" 1 says King of Corpus to Jones of Trinity; and Jones gave a shrug of his shoulders, which were smarting, perhaps; for that uplifted cane of the Colonel's had somehow fallen on the back of every man in the room.

1 "What the devil was he doing in this galley?"'—a proverbial expression from a play by Molière.

79

AN EPISODE AT AN INN1

Laurence Sterne

THE

hero, who tells his

own story, has just crossed

the strait from Dover to Calais and put up at
an inn.
A poor monk, of the order of Saint Francis,
comes into his room to beg for his convent.

The moment I cast my eyes upon him I was predetermined not to give him a single sou; and accordingly I put my purse into my pocket, buttoned it up, set myself a little more upon my center, and advanced up gravely to him. There was something, I fear, forbidding in my look: I have his figure this moment before my eyes, and think there was that in it which deserved better.

The monk, as I judged from the break in his tonsure, a few scattered white hairs upon his temples being all that remained of it, might be about seventy; but from his eyes, and that sort of fire which was in them, which seemed more tempered by courtesy than years, could be no more than sixty: truth might lie between—he was certainly sixty-five; and the general air of his countenance, notwithstanding something seemed to have been planting wrinkles in it before their time, agreed to the account.

It was one of those heads which Guido has often painted— mild, pale, penetrating, free from all commonplace ideas of fat contented ignorance looking downwards upon the earth; it looked forwards, but looked at something beyond this world. How one of his order came by it, Heaven above, who let it

1 From A Sentimental Journey through France and Italy. Omissions are not indicated.

fall upon a monk's shoulders, best knows; but it would have suited a Brahmin, and, had I met it upon the plains of Indostan, I had reverenced it.

The rest of his outline may be given in a few strokes; one might put it into the hands of any one to design, for 'twas neither elegant nor otherwise but as character and expression made it so it was a thin, spare form, something above the common size, if it lost not the distinction by a bend forward in the figure-but it was the attitude of entreaty; and, as it now stands presented to my imagination, it gained more than it lost by it.

When he had entered the room three paces, he stood still; and laying his left hand upon his breast (a slender white staff with which he journeyed being in his right), when I had got close up to him he introduced himself with the little story of the wants of his convent and the poverty of his order; and did it with so simple a grace, and such an air of deprecation was there in the whole cast of his look and figure, I was bewitched not to have been struck with it.

A better reason was, I had predetermined not to give him a single sou.

""Tis very true," said I, replying to a cast upwards with his eyes, with which he had concluded his address. ""Tis very true and Heaven be their recourse who have no other but the charity of the world! the stock of which, I fear, is no way sufficient for the many great claims which are hourly made upon it."

As I pronounced the words great claims, he gave a slight glance with his eye downwards upon the sleeve of his tunic; I felt the full force of the appeal. "I acknowledge it," said I: "a coarse habit, and that but once in three years, with meager diet, are no great matters; and the true point of pity is, as they can be earned in the world with so little industry, that your order should wish to procure them by pressing upon

a fund which is the property of the lame, the blind, the aged, and the infirm! The captive, who lies down counting over and over again the days of his afflictions, languishes also for his share of it; and had you had been of the order of Mercy, instead of the order of St. Francis, poor as I am," continued I, pointing at my portmanteau, "full cheerfully should it have been opened to you, for the ransom of the unfortunate." The monk made me a bow. "But of all others," resumed I, “the unfortunate of our own country, surely, have the first rights; and I have left thousands in distress upon our own shore." The monk gave a cordial wave with his head, as much as to say "No doubt there is misery enough in every corner of the world, as well as within our convent." "But we distinguish,” said I, laying my hand upon the sleeve of his tunic, in return for his appeal-"we distinguish, my good father, betwixt those who wish only to eat the bread of their own labor, and those who eat the bread of other people's, and have no other plan in life but to get through it in sloth and ignorance, for the love of God."

The poor Franciscan made no reply: a hectic of a moment passed across his cheek, but could not tarry. Nature seemed to have had done with her resentments in him; he showed none; but letting his staff fall within his arm, he pressed both his hands with resignation upon his breast, and retired.

My heart smote me at the moment he shut the door. "Pshaw!" said I, with an air of carelessness, three several times, but it would not do; every ungracious syllable I uttered crowded back into my imagination; I reflected I had no right over the poor Franciscan but to deny him, and that the punishment of that was enough to the disappointed, without the addition of unkind language. I considered his gray hairs: his courteous figure seemed to re-enter, and gently ask me what injury he had done me, and why I could use him thus; I would have given twenty livres for an advocate. "I have

behaved very ill," said I, within myself; "but I have only just set out upon my travels, and shall learn better manners as I get along."

The traveler meets presently with a charming lady, upon whose heart he desires to make a tender impression. As he has seen her engaged in conversation with the monk and fears that the good Franciscan by relating the discourtesy he had suffered may cool her ripening regard, he considers how he shall make amends for his rudeness. He now stands beside the lady, her hand held loosely in his

own.

The good old monk was within six paces of us as the idea of him crossed my mind; and was advancing towards us a little out of the line, as if uncertain whether he should break in upon us or no. He stopped, however, as soon as he came up to us, with a world of frankness, and having a horn snuff-box in his hand, he presented it open to me. "You shall taste mine," said I, pulling out my box (which was a small tortoise one) and putting it into his hand. ""Tis most excellent," said the monk. "Then do me the favor," I replied, "to accept of the box and all; and when you take a pinch out of it, sometimes recollect it was the peace-offering of a man who once used you unkindly, but not from his heart." The poor monk blushed as red as scarlet. "Mon Dieu!" said he, pressing his hands together, "you never used me unkindly." "I should think," said the lady, "it is not likely." I blushed in my turn; but from what movements, I leave to the few who feel, to analyze. "Excuse me, madam,” replied I, "I treated him most unkindly; and from no provocations." ""Tis impossible," said the lady. "My God!" cried the monk, with a warmth of asseveration which seemed not to