everybody accepts everybody's wine. Bob Irons, who travels in
linen on our circuit, told me that he had made some slap-up
acquaintances among the genteelest people at Paris, nothing but by
offering them Sham.

"Well, my Baroness takes one glass, two glasses, three glasses--the
old fellow goes--we have a deal of chat (she took me for a military
man, she said: is it not singular that so many people should?), and
by ten o'clock we had grown so intimate, that I had from her her
whole history, knew where she came from, and where she was going.
Leave me alone with 'em: I can find out any woman's history in half
an hour.

"And where do you think she IS going? to Paris to be sure: she has
her seat in what they call the coopy (though you're not near so
cooped in it as in our coaches. I've been to the office and seen
one of 'em). She has her place in the coopy, and the coopy holds
THREE; so what does Sam Pogson do?--he goes and takes the other
two. Ain't I up to a thing or two? Oh, no, not the least; but I
shall have her to myself the whole of the way.

"We shall be in the French metropolis the day after this reaches
you: please look out for a handsome lodging for me, and never mind
the expense. And I say, if you could, in her hearing, when you
came down to the coach, call me Captain Pogson, I wish you would--
it sounds well travelling, you know; and when she asked me if I was
not an officer, I couldn't say no. Adieu, then, my dear fellow,
till Monday, and vive le joy, as they say. The Baroness says I
speak French charmingly, she talks English as well as you or I.