many other
inns on the great post-road--but originality had had nothing whatever to
do with it. The wandering painter who produced this remarkable work of
art happened to have no vestige of any colour but blue left upon his
palette, and he discoursed so eloquently of the superiority of this tint
to all others that he succeeded in persuading the worthy innkeeper to
have an azure sun depicted on his swinging sign. And not this one alone
had yielded to his specious arguments, for he had painted blue lions,
blue cocks, blue horses, on various signs in the country round, in a
manner that would have delighted the Chinese--who esteem an artist in
proportion to the unnaturalness of his designs and colouring.

The few scrawny, unwholesome-looking children feebly playing in the
muddy, filthy, little street, and the prematurely old, ghastly women
standing at the open doors of the miserable thatched huts of which the
hamlet was composed, were but too evidently the wretched victims of a
severe type of malarial fever that prevails in the Landes. They were
truly piteous objects, and our travellers were glad to take refuge in
the inn--though it was anything but inviting--and so get out of sight of
them.

The landlord, a villainous looking fellow, with an ugly crimson
scar across his forehead, who rejoiced in the extraordinary name of
Chirriguirri, received them with many low obeisances, and led the way
into his house, talking volubly of the excellent accommodations to be
found therein.

The Baron de Sigognac hesitated ere he crossed the threshold, though the
comedians had all drawn back respectfully to allow him to precede them.
His pride revolted at going into such a place in such company, but one
glance from Isabelle put everything else out of his head, and he entered
the dirty little inn at her side with an air of joyful alacrity. In the
happy kingdom of France the fortunate man who escorted a pretty woman,
no matter where, needed not to fear ridicule or contumely, and was sure
to be envied.

The large low room into which Maitre Chirriguirri ushered the party,
with much ceremony and many bows, was scarcely so magnificent as he
had given them reason to expect, but our strolling players had long ago
learned to take whatever came in their way without grumbling, and they
seated themselves quietly on the rude wooden settles ranged round a
rough, stone platform in the centre of the apartment, upon which a few
sticks of wood were bla