He suffered hugely on the voyage, during which the ladies were likewise
prostrate; but Amelia was brought to life again as the packet made
Ostend, by the sight of the transports conveying her regiment, which
entered the harbour almost at the same time with the Lovely Rose. Jos
went in a collapsed state to an inn, while Captain Dobbin escorted the
ladies, and then busied himself in freeing Jos's carriage and luggage
from the ship and the custom-house, for Mr. Jos was at present without
a servant, Osborne's man and his own pampered menial having conspired
together at Chatham, and refused point-blank to cross the water. This
revolt, which came very suddenly, and on the last day, so alarmed Mr.
Sedley, junior, that he was on the point of giving up the expedition,
but Captain Dobbin (who made himself immensely officious in the
business, Jos said), rated him and laughed at him soundly: the
mustachios were grown in advance, and Jos finally was persuaded to
embark. In place of the well-bred and well-fed London domestics, who
could only speak English, Dobbin procured for Jos's party a swarthy
little Belgian servant who could speak no language at all; but who, by
his bustling behaviour, and by invariably addressing Mr. Sedley as "My
lord," speedily acquired that gentleman's favour. Times are altered at
Ostend now; of the Britons who go thither, very few look like lords, or
act like those members of our hereditary aristocracy. They seem for
the most part shabby in attire, dingy of linen, lovers of billiards and
brandy, and cigars and greasy ordinaries.