 cook?” demanded I.

“_Monsieur_, _je le suis pour vous rendre service_, _mon nom c’est
Gérard_, _et j’ai l’honneur d’être chef de cuisine chez monsieur le
consul Hollandois_.  _A present je prie permission de vous saluer_; _il
faut que j’aille à la maison pour faire le diner de mon maître_.”

At four I went to dine with the British consul.  Two other English
gentlemen were present, who had arrived at Tangier from Gibraltar about
ten days previously for a short excursion, and were now detained longer
than they wished by the Levant wind.  They had already visited the
principal towns in Spain, and proposed spending the winter either at
Cadiz or Seville.  One of them, Mr. ---, struck me as being one of the
most remarkable men I had ever conversed with: he travelled not for
diversion nor instigated by curiosity, but merely with the hope of doing
spiritual good, chiefly by conversation.  The consul soon asked me what I
thought of the Moors and their country.  I told him that what I had
hitherto seen of both highly pleased me.  He said that were I to live
amongst them ten years, as he had done, he believed I should entertain a
very different opinion; that no people in the world were more false and
cruel; that their government was one of the vilest description, with
which it was next to an impossibility for any foreign power to hold
amicable relations, as it invariably acted with bad faith, and set at
nought the most solemn treaties.  That British property and interests
were every day subjected to ruin and spoliation, and British subjects
exposed to unheard-of vexations, without the slightest hope of redress
being offered, save recourse was had to force, the only argument to which
the Moors were accessible.  He added, that towards the end of the
preceding year an atrocious murder had been perpetrated in Tangier: a
Genoese family of three individuals had perished, all of whom were
British subjects, and entitled to the protection of the British flag.
The murderers were known, and the principal one was 