in a neat military cap, while the English notabilities looked askance,
and the Duke of Wellington dubbed him the Corporal. "God damme!" he
exclaimed to Mr. Creevey, "d'ye know what his sisters call him? By God!
they call him Joseph Surface!" At Valenciennes, where there was a
review and a great dinner, the Duchess arrived with an old and
ugly lady-in-waiting, and the Duke of Wellington found himself in a
difficulty. "Who the devil is to take out the maid of honour?" he kept
asking; but at last he thought of a solution. "Damme, Freemantle, find
out the mayor and let him do it." So the Mayor of Valenciennes was
brought up for the purpose, and--so we learn from Mr. Creevey--"a
capital figure he was." A few days later, at Brussels, Mr. Creevey
himself had an unfortunate experience. A military school was to be
inspected--before breakfast. The company assembled; everything was
highly satisfactory; but the Duke of Kent continued for so long
examining every detail and asking meticulous question after meticulous
question, that Mr. Creevey at last could bear it no longer, and
whispered to his neighbour that he was damned hungry. The Duke of
Wellington heard him, and was delighted. "I recommend you," he said,
"whenever you start with the royal family in a morning, and particularly
with THE CORPORAL, always to breakfast first." He and his staff, it
turned out, had taken that precaution, and the great man amused himself,
while the stream of royal inquiries poured on, by pointing at Mr.
Creevey from time to time with the remark, "Voila le monsieur qui n'a
pas dejeune!"

Settled down at last at Amorbach, the time hung heavily on the Duke's
hands. The establishment was small, the country was impoverished; even
clock-making grew tedious at last. He brooded--for in spite of his piety
the Duke was not without a vein of superstition--over the prophecy of
a gipsy at Gibraltar who told him that he was to have many losses and