woodashes, was the only apology for trees,
hedges, or vegetation generally, visible. If
wood was deficient, however, there was
plenty of water. Behind the house, where
it had been apparently raining for some
years, a highly respectable, puddle, as far as
mud and stagnation went, had formed, and,
on the surface of it drifted a solitary, purposeless,
soleless old shoe, and one dismal
duck which no amount of green peas would
have ever persuaded me to eat. There was a
chimney to the house, but not in the proper
place, of course : it came out of one of the
walls, close to the impromptu pigstye, in the
shape of a rusty, battered iron funnel. There
had never been anything to speak of done in
the way of painting to the house ; only some
erratic journeyman painter passing that way
had tried his brushes in red, green, and
yellow smudges on the wall ; had commenced
dead colouring one of the window
sills ; and had then given it up as a bad job.
Some pretentious announcements relative to
" Good wines and liquors ; " and " II y a un
billard " there had been once above the door,
but the rain had washed out some of the
letters, and the smoke had obscured others,
and the plaster had peeled off from beneath
more ; and some, perhaps, the writer had
never finished ; so the inscriptions were a
mere wandering piece of idiotcy now. If
anything were wanted to complete the general
wretchedness of this house of dismal appearances
it would have been found in the presence
of a ghostly set of ninepins that Rip
Van Winkle might have played with.

All these things were not calculated to
inspire cheerfulness. I continued smoking,
however, and thought that by and by I would
enter the cabaret, and see if there were any
live people there ; which appeared unlikely.

All at once, there came out to me from
the house a little man. It is not at all derogating
from his manhood to state that he was
also a little boy, of perhaps eight years old ;
but in look, in eye, in weird fur-cap, in peacoat,
blue canvas trowsers, and sabots, he was
at least thirty- seven years of age. He had a
remarkable way, too, of stroking his chin
with his hand, He looked at me long
and fully, but without the slightest rudeness,
or intrusive curiosity ; then sitting
by my side on the great felled tree he smoked
a mental pipe (so it appeared to me) while I
smoked a material one. Once, I think, he
softly felt the texture of my coat ; but I did
not turn my head, and pretended not to
notice.

We were getting on thus, very sociably
together, without saying a word, when
having finished my pipe I replaced it in my
pouch, and began to remove a little of the
superfluous dust from my boots. My pulverous
appearance was the cue for the little
man to address himself to speech.

" I see," said he, gravely, " you are one of
those poor travellers whom mamma tells us
we are to take such care of. Attend, attend,
I will do your affair for you in a moment."

He trotted across to the cabaret, and after
a lapse of two or three minutes returned
with a tremendous hunch of bread, a cube
of cheese—which smelt, as the Americans
say, rather loud, but was excellently
well-tasted—and an anomalous sort of vessel
that was neither a jug, a mug, a cup, a glass,
nor a pint-pot, but partook of the characteristics
of all—full of Macon wine.

"This is Friday," added the little man,
"and meagre day, else should you be
regaled with sausage—and of Lyons—of
which we have as long as that; "saying
which he extended his little arms to perhaps
half a yard's distance one from the other.

I did not care to inform the little man that
I was of a persuasion that did not forbid the
eating of sausages on Fridays. I ate the
bread and cheese and drank the wine, all of
which were very good and very palatable,
very contentedly : the little man sitting by,
the while, nursing one of his short legs, and
talking to himself softly.

When I had finished I lighted another
pipe, and went in for conversation with the
little man. We soon exhausted the ordinary
topics of conversation, such as the weather,
the distance from the last town, and the
distance to the next. I found that the little
man's forte was interrogatory, and let him
have his swing that way.

"You come from a long way ?" he asked.

" A long way," I answered. " From beyond
the Sous-prefecture, beyond Nantes,
beyond Brest and L'Orient."

" But from a town, always ? You come
from a town where there are a great many
people, and where they make wheels ? "

I answered that I came from a large
town, and that I had no doubt, though
I had no personal experience in the matter,
that wheels were made there.

" And cannot you make wheels ? "

I told him I was not a wheelwright ; I
only made the wheels of watches, which
were not the wheels he meant.

" Because," the little man went on to say,
softly, and more to himself than to me,
" mamma said he liked more to live in towns,
where there were many people, and M. le
Curé said that wherever wheels were made
he could gain his bread.''

I could not make much of this statement,
so I puffed away at my pipe, and listened.

"By the way," my small but elderly companion
remarked, " would you have any
objection to my bringing my sister to you ? "

The more I saw of so original a family
the better, I thought ; so I told him I should
be delighted to see his sister.

He crossed over to the cabaret again, and
almost immediately afterwards returned,
leading a little maid.

She seemed about a year younger, or a
year older than her brother. I could not