e, you see, because yesterday I was in the
nineties."

My friend began to laugh. "In the nineties, Matthew! How did you manage
it?"

"I will tell you," said Matthew. "Last year I found only twenty rasieres
(an old dry measure) of apricots. There are no more, but those are the
only things to make cider of. So I made some, and yesterday I tapped the
barrel. Talk of nectar! That was nectar. You shall tell me what you think
of it. Polyte was here, and we sat down and drank a glass and another
without being satisfied (one could go on drinking it until to-morrow),
and at last, with glass after glass, I felt a chill at my stomach. I said
to Polyte: 'Supposing we drink a glass of cognac to warm ourselves?' He
agreed. But this cognac, it sets you on fire, so that we had to go back
to the cider. But by going from chills to heat and heat to chills, I saw
that I was in the nineties. Polyte was not far from his limit."

The door opened and Melie appeared. At once, before bidding us good-day,
she cried:

"Great hog, you have both of you reached your limit!"

"Don't say that, Melie; don't say that," said Matthew, getting angry. "I
have never reached my limit."

They gave us a delicious luncheon outside beneath two lime trees, beside
the little chapel and overlooking the vast landscape. And Matthew told
us, with a mixture of humor and unexpected credulity, incredible stories
of miracles.

We had drunk a good deal of delicious cider, sparkling and sweet, fresh
and intoxicating, which he preferred to all other drinks, and were
smoking our pipes astride our chairs when two women appeared.

They were old, dried up and bent. After greeting us they asked for Saint
Blanc. Matthew winked at us as he replied:

"I will get him for you." And he disappeared in his wood shed. He
remained there fully five minutes. Then he came back with an expression
of consternation. He raised his hands.

"I don't know where he is. I cannot find him. I am quite sure that I had
him." Then making a speaking trumpet of his hands, he roared once more:

"Meli-e-a!"

"What's the matter?" replied his wife from the end of the garden.

"Where's Saint Blanc? I cannot find him in the wood shed."

Then Melie explained it this way:

"Was not that the one you took last week to stop up a hole in the rabbit
hutch?"

Matthew gave a start.

"By thunder, that may be!" Then turning to the women, he said:

"Follow me."

They followed him. We did the same, almos