“What!  DAUBINET!” I exclaim, he being the last person I had expected to see, having, indeed, a letter on my desk from him, dated yesterday and delivered this morning, to that he was then, at the moment of writing, and practically therefore for the next forty-eight hours—­at least; so it would be with any ordinary individual—­in Edinburgh.  But DAUBINET is not an ordinary individual, and the ordinary laws of motion to and from any given point do not apply to him.  He is a Flying Frenchman—­here, there, and everywhere; especially everywhere.  So mercurial, that he will be in advance of Mercury himself, and having written a letter in the morning to say he is coming, it is not unlikely that he will travel by the next train, arrive before the letter, and then wonder that you weren’t prepared to receive him.  Such, in a brief sketch, is mon ami DAUBINET.

[Illustration:  “He is a Flying Frenchman.”]

“Aha! me voici!” he cries, shaking my hand warmly.  Then he sings, waving his hat in his left hand, and still grasping my right with his, “Voici le sabre de mon pere!” which reminiscence of OFFENBACH has no particular relevancy to anything at the present moment; but it evidently lets off some of his superfluous steam.  He continues, always with my hand in his, “J’arrive! inattendu!  Mais, mon cher,”—­here he turns off the French stop of his polyglot organ, and, as it were, turns on the English stop,—­continuing his address to me in very distinctly-pronounced English, “I wrote to you to say I would be here,” then pressing the French stop, he concludes with, “ce matin, n’est-ce pas?”

“Parfaitement, mon cher,” I reply, giving myself a chance of airing a little French, being on perfectly safe ground, as he thoroughly understands English; indeed, he understands several languages, and, if I flounder out of my depth in foreign waters, one stroke will bring me safe on to the British rock of intelligibility again; or, if I obstinately persist in floundering, and am searching for the word as for a plank, he will jump in and rescue me.  Under these circumstances, I am perfectly safe in talking French to him “Mais je ne vous attendais ce matin”—­I’ve got an idea that this is something uncommonly grammatical—­“a cause de votre lettre que je viens de recevoir”—­this, I’ll swear, is idiomatic—­“ce matin.  La voila!” I pride myself on “La,” as representing my knowledge that “lettre,” to which it refers, is feminine.

“Caramba!” he exclaims—­an exclamation which, I have every reason to suppose, from want of more definite information, is Spanish. “Caramba! that letter is from Edinburgh; j’ai visite Glasgow, the Nord et partout, et je suis de retour, I am going on business to Reims, pour revenir par Paris,—­si vous voudrez me donner le plaisir de votre compagnie—­de Jeudi prochain a Mardi—­vous serez mon invite,—­et je serai charme, tres charme.”