CHAPTER XX

Now I hate to hear a person, especially if he be a traveller, complain that we do not get on so fast in _France_ as we do in _England_; whereas we get on much faster, _consideratis considerandis_; thereby always meaning, that if you weigh their vehicles with the mountains of baggage which you lay both before and behind upon them--and then consider their puny horses, with the very little they give them--’tis a wonder they get on at all: their suffering is most unchristian, and ’tis evident thereupon to me, that a _French_ post-horse would not know what in the world to do, was it not for the two words ****** and ****** in which there is as much sustenance, as if you gave him a peck of corn: now as these words cost nothing, I long from my soul to tell the reader what they are; but here is the question--they must be told him plainly, and with the most distinct articulation, or it will answer no end--and yet to do it in that plain way--though their reverences may laugh at it in the bed-chamber--fell well I wot, they will abuse it in the parlour: for which cause, I have been volving and revolving in my fancy some time, but to no purpose, by what clean device or facette contrivance I might so modulate them, that whilst I satisfy _that ear_ which the reader chuses to _lend_ me --I might not dissatisfy the other which he keeps to himself.

----My ink burns my finger to try----and when I have----’twill have a worse consequence----it will burn (I fear) my paper.

----No; ----I dare not----

But if you wish to know how the _abbess_ of _Andoüillets_ and a novice of her convent got over the difficulty (only first wishing myself all imaginable success) --I’ll tell you without the least scruple.

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