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An Inland Voyage by Robert Louis Stevenson
page 20 of 125 (16%)
absurd and disreputable means of livelihood but has been attributed
to him in some heat of official or popular distrust. . . .

For the life of me I cannot understand it. I too have been knolled
to church, and sat at good men's feasts; but I bear no mark of it.
I am as strange as a Jack Indian to their official spectacles. I
might come from any part of the globe, it seems, except from where
I do. My ancestors have laboured in vain, and the glorious
Constitution cannot protect me in my walks abroad. It is a great
thing, believe me, to present a good normal type of the nation you
belong to.

Nobody else was asked for his papers on the way to Maubeuge; but I
was; and although I clung to my rights, I had to choose at last
between accepting the humiliation and being left behind by the
train. I was sorry to give way; but I wanted to get to Maubeuge.

Maubeuge is a fortified town, with a very good inn, the Grand Cerf.
It seemed to be inhabited principally by soldiers and bagmen; at
least, these were all that we saw, except the hotel servants. We
had to stay there some time, for the canoes were in no hurry to
follow us, and at last stuck hopelessly in the custom-house until
we went back to liberate them. There was nothing to do, nothing to
see. We had good meals, which was a great matter; but that was
all.

The Cigarette was nearly taken up upon a charge of drawing the
fortifications: a feat of which he was hopelessly incapable. And
besides, as I suppose each belligerent nation has a plan of the
other's fortified places already, these precautions are of the
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