LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume VI, Issue 684, 29 August 1876, Page 3

LITERATURE.

SMITH, BROWN, JONES, AND ROBINSON. 'Then that is understood, * said M. N. of Calais to M. V. of the same place. 'AIT you have to do is just to ask the name, and courteously invite the party to pass on. It is only where the name may strike you as decidedly French, or German, Italian, &c, that you may politely ask for further information. Bear in mind always that it is after all only a mere matter of form; and do not be over-strait and punctilious. I never am. So good-bye, and much obliged to you once more for kindly enabling me to have a holiday.' The speaker was the urbane gentleman who asks you for your name when you land at Calais. The person addressed was M.V., an employee of the French Customs, who had undertaken to replace M. N. for the day and do duty for him. M. V. is one of the most courteous and obliging officials of the port of Calais; but, like most Frenchmen, he is very toucy upon the point of his personal dignity : and, above all things, he cannot bear the notion of being made game of or having fun poked at him, even in the mildest form. He prides himself upon his very extensive and most accurate knowledge of the English tongue, being indeed in his own estimation what Mrs Goldspink would call a 'beautiful' English scholar. It was a Saturday in May. The weather was delightful and the sea smooth as a mirror. There was a light favorable breeze, and the Dover-Calais boat made accordingly one of the finest passages on record, without a single case of sea-sickness on board- The boat was crowded with passengers, who all of them more or less felt the genial inspiriting influence of the bright day. Among these happened to be a group of twenty-four young men, all friends together, bent upon enjoying a holiday at the seaside on the French coast, and much inclined to mirth and jollity. _ With the true Anglo-Saxon vein of fun in them and love of mischief, they agreed among them to keep compactly together on landing, divided into batches of four, and to give the inquisitive gentleman at the landing stage exactly the same response in succession, to wit, Smith, Brown, Jones, Robinson. Now it came to pa«j that these twentyfour gentjemen were the first to land. M. V. uttered his, 'Your names, Bare, iv you pleases ?' with most polished courtesy to the first gentleman coming up to him, who, with a polite bend of the head, responded, 'Smith, if you please,' replied the urbane official. Brown, Jones, Robinson came in their turn ; then Smith, Brown, Jones, Robinson over again, and once more, without producing the least change in M. V.'s punctiliously polite invitation to pass on. However, when the fourth Mr Smith came up in his turn, M. V. began to get a little exercised in his mind, and when the fourth Mr Robinson passed him a close and attentive observer might have detected an incipient tremble of impatience in the courteous official's utterance. WTien the leader of the fifth batch blandly gave in his name as Smith, M. V. ielt an unpleasant suspicion dawn upon him that this strange sameness of names in exactly the same rotation might not be altogether the effect of natural chance, and that there might possibly lurk beneath it an impudent intention to have a lark at his cost. ' Very strange,' he muttered to himself, as Brown, Jones, and Robinson were passing him again in turn; ' Smiss, Braouenne, Dzones, Kobinsonne! It is most extraordinary ; but it can hardly be that they would dare to make game of me and the port regulations.' Why, indeed, should these gentlemen, who did not even know him personally, indulge in a mild joke at his expense ? It was not likely. When, however, the Smith, Brown, Jones, and Robinson of the sixth batch were passing him, the humiliating suspicion that he was actually being made game of by these insolent sons of perfidious Albion became strongly confirmed m M. V.'s mind.

•It is quite evident now,' he muttered to himself, with his feelings of offended personal dignity bubbling up within him to the verge of boiling over; ' it is quite evident that they are poking their fun at me. Ah, well, gentlemen of England, we will soon see whether we cannot put a stop to this somehow.'

M. V., thus touched to the quick in hi 3 tenderest susceptibilities, and fully resolved to spoil the Englishmen's suspected little game, looked no longer quite the same calmly urbane gentleman who had so courteously invited the first batches of Smiths, Browns, Jonses, and Robinsons to pass on. So on the next two gentlemen coming up to him, who were altogether unconnected with the twenty-four confederates, and were both of them stout, fair-faced, light-haired, and auburn-whiskered unmistakable AngloSaxons,, the indignant official almost unwittingly threw the irritation of his mind into his stereotyped inquiry. ' Your names, sare, iv you pleases ?'

By a merry coincidence, the names of the two happened to be Smith and Brown respectively. When Mr Smith honestly responded to the question addressed to him, M. V. completely lost his temper. 'Ah !' he shouted with angry gesticulations, * ah, avonn ozzair sare Smiss; and zee ozzair sare vonn ozzair sare Braouenne 1* he added inquiringly. Wherupon Mr Brown, who did not quite understand what was said, but thought he caught the sound of his name, simply responded with perfect cheerfulness, * Yes, my name is Brown.' This was too much. It was the last straw. It achieved the complete upsetting of M. V.'s balance of mind. ' Ah!' shouted the irate official, ' you makes zee engpropair zing, gentlemans; you larff me at zee nose !' Then he proceeded to tell them in most voluble French that such conduct was but an indifferent return for his politeness; that it was in fact an unbecoming want of com- ; mon courtesy on their part; that the asking of the names of the passengers, though it .might seem to them a mere immaterial I matter of form, was yet strictly enjoined by ! the port regulations; and that they had i better conform to those regulations, as he, ;M. V., was determined to do his duty ; also ! that he was convinced in his mind that the ■ one gentleman's name was not Smith, as : little as the other gentleman's name was i Brown ; and that they had better tell him their real names. [To be continued,']