'Most people do, I suppose.'

'Ah! but these people are always howling. Never happy otherwise.'

'Do you mean the Marseilles people?'

'I mean the French people. They're always at it. As to
Marseilles, we know what Marseilles is. It sent the most
insurrectionary tune into the world that was ever composed. It
couldn't exist without allonging and marshonging to something or
other--victory or death, or blazes, or something.'

The speaker, with a whimsical good humour upon him all the time,
looked over the parapet-wall with the greatest disparagement of
Marseilles; and taking up a determined position by putting his
hands in his pockets and rattling his money at it, apostrophised it
with a short laugh.

'Allong and marshong, indeed. It would be more creditable to you,
I think, to let other people allong and marshong about their lawful
business, instead of shutting 'em up in quarantine!'

'Tiresome enough,' said the other. 'But we shall be out to-day.'

'Out to-day!' repeated the first. 'It's almost an aggravation of
the enormity, that we shall be out to-day. Out! What have we ever
been in for?'

'For no very strong reason, I must say. But as we come from the
East, and as the East is the country of the plague--'