Chapter 12 - Page 2

coat-pocket, dragged out a bit of
cork with some hen's feathers, and hurrying to his room, took out his
knife, and proceeded to whittle away at a shuttlecock of an original
scientific construction, which at some prior time he had promised to
send to the young Duchess D'Abrantes that very afternoon.

Safely reaching Calais, at night, Israel stepped almost from the
diligence into the packet, and, in a few moments, was cutting the water.
As on the diligence he took an outside and plebeian seat, so, with the
same secret motive of preserving unsuspected the character assumed, he
took a deck passage in the packet. It coming on to rain violently, he
stole down into the forecastle, dimly lit by a solitary swinging lamp,
where were two men industriously smoking, and filling the narrow hole
with soporific vapors. These induced strange drowsiness in Israel, and
he pondered how best he might indulge it, for a time, without
imperilling the precious documents in his custody.

But this pondering in such soporific vapors had the effect of those
mathematical devices whereby restless people cipher themselves to sleep.
His languid head fell to his breast. In another moment, he drooped
half-lengthwise upon a chest, his legs outstretched before him.

Presently he was awakened by some intermeddlement with his feet.
Starting to his elbow, he saw one of the two men in the act of slyly
slipping off his right boot, while the left one, already removed, lay on
the floor, all ready against the rascal's retreat Had it not been for
the lesson learned on the Pont Neuf, Israel would instantly have
inferred that his secret mission was known, and the operator some
designed diplomatic knave or other, hired by the British Cabinet, thus
to lie in wait for him, fume him into slumber with tobacco, and then
rifle him of his momentous dispatches. But as it was, he recalled Doctor
Franklin's prudent admonitions against the indulgence of premature
suspicions.

"Sir," said Israel very civilly, "I will thank you for that boot which
lies on the floor, and, if you please, you can let the other stay where
it is."

"Excuse me," said the rascal, an accomplished, self-possessed
practitioner in his thievish art; "I thought your boots might be
pinching you, and only wished to ease you a little."

"Much obliged to ye for your kindness, sir," said Israel; "but they
don't pinch me at all. I suppose, though, you think they wouldn't pinch
_you_ either; your foot looks rather small. Were you going to try 'em
on, just to see how they fitted?"

"No," said the fellow, with sanctimonious seriousness; "but with your
permission I should like to try them on, when we get to