Note (return) — SELECT BIOGRAPHY

"Permit me to relate to you an incident. About a fortnight ago, Sir James Hall,8 an English gentleman, on his way from Paris to Cherbourg, stopped his coach at our door, and came up to my chamber. I was in bed at six o'clock in the morning, but having flung on my robe de chambre, I met him at the door of the ante-chamber. I was glad to see him, but surprised. He observed, that he had endeavoured to make up his opinion of me, with as much exactness as possible, and concluded that no kind of visit whatever would surprise me. I could do no otherwise than remark, that his opinion surprised me at least, and the conversation took another turn. In walking across the chamber, he laughingly put his hand on a six livre piece, and a louis d'or that lay on my table, and with a half stifled blush, asked me how I was in the money way. Blushes commonly beget blushes, and I blushed partly because he did, and partly on other accounts. 'If fifteen guineas,' said he, interrupting the answer he had demanded, 'will be of any service to you, there they are,' and he put them on the table. 'I am a traveller myself, and though I have some fortune to support my travels, yet I have been so situated as to want money, which you ought not to do. You have my address in London.' He then wished me a good morning and left me. This gentleman was a total stranger to the situation of my finances, and one that I had, by mere accident, met at an ordinary in Paris."