Book of Snobs Author:William Makepeace Thackeray Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER XXI. SOME CONTINENTAL SNOBS. . , OV that September has come, and all our Parliamentary duties are over, perhaps no class of Snobs are in such high ... more »feather as the Continental Snobs. I watch these daily as they commence their migrations from the beach at Folkestone. I see shoals of them depart (not perhaps without an innate longing too to quit the Island along with those happy Snobs). Farewell, dear friends, I say : you little know that the individual who regards you from the beach is your friend and historiographer and brother. I went to-day to see our excellent friend Snooks, on board the " Queen of the French ; " many scores of Snobs were there, on the deck of that fine ship, marching forth in their pride and bravery. They will be at Ostend in four hours ; they will inundate the Continent next week ; they will carry into far lands the famous image of the British Snob. I shall not see them— but am with them in spirit : and indeed there is hardly a country in the known and civilized world in which these eyes have not beheld them. I have seen Snobs, in pink coats and hunting-boots, scouring over the Campagna of Rome ; and have heard their oaths and their well- known slang in the galleries of the Vatican, and under the shadowy arches of the Colosseum. I have met a Snob on a dromedary in the desert, and pienicking under the Pyramid of Cheops. I like to think how many gallant British Snobs there are, at this minute of writing, pushing their heads out of every window in the courtyard of " Meu- rice's " in the Rue de Rivoli ; or roaring out, " Garsong, du pang," " Garson, du vang ; " or swaggering down the Toledo at Naples ; oreven how many will be on the look-out for Snooks on Ostend Pier,— for Snooks, and the rest of the Snobs on board the " Queen of the French." ...« less