t _carafe_ of white wine.
These having vanished, their place was taken by a dish of sodden
cabbage, and another quart of wine; but, to save the credit of the maire
and the schoolmaster, I will not say how often the former functionary
descended to the cellar with a quart pitcher, with increasing
impetuosity. Next came a dish of onions, with a pretence of
_mange-tout,_ broiled brown after boiling, and served in a compound fat;
and then haricots with a like condiment, and with a flavour reminiscent
of the previous course. There was some talk of a _poulet_; but the bird
still lived, and the talk came to nothing. The dinner ended with the
haricots, and we then relapsed into dessert, namely, bread and kirsch.
The mayoress came in with the dessert, and sat on the end of the bench,
below the hats and the bread-tin, eating the remaining onions off the
dish with the spoon of nature.

During one of the maire's frequent visits to the cellar, I propounded
a question to the schoolmaster which had puzzled me for some time: Was
I to pay the maire? M. Rosset said that it was certainly not
_necessary_, but I had better propose it, and I should then see how M.
Metral took it. This I accordingly did, when the adieux in the house
had been said, and my host was showing me the way to Thorens, where I
was to sleep, he, also, declared that it was not necessary--the
pleasure he had experienced in accompanying me had already fully
recompensed him: still, if I wished to reimburse him for that which I
had actually cost, he was a man reasonable, and in all cases content.
I calculated that the dinner and wine which had fallen to my share
would be dear at a franc, and the day's wage of a substitute to do the
maire's neglected work could not come to much, so I boldly and
unblushingly gave that great man four francs, and he said regretfully
that it was more than enough. To his son and heir--the identical boy
who had brought the ring of bread up the mountain to the chalet where
we lunched. I gave something under two-pence, for guiding me across
two doubtful fields into a beaten track, and he expressed himself as
even more content than the maire. They both told me that it was
impossible to miss the way; but I imagine that I achieved that
impossibility, as I had to walk through two streams in the deepening
twilight, and the prevailing fear of water in that region is very
considerable.

The _auberge_ at Thorens to which the maire had recommended me, as be