The Project Gutenberg EBook of Original Short Stories of Maupassant,
Volume 9, by Guy de Maupassant

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Title: Original Short Stories, Volume 9 (of 13)

Author: Guy de Maupassant

Last Updated: February 13, 2009
Release Date: August 16, 2006 [EBook #3085]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MAUPASSANT SHORT STORIES ***

Produced by David Widger

ORIGINAL SHORT STORIES

By Guy De Maupassant

Translated by:

ALBERT M. C. McMASTER, B.A.
A. E. HENDERSON, B.A.
MME. QUESADA and Others

VOLUME IX.

TOINE
MADAME HUSSON'S ROSIER
THE ADOPTED SON
A COWARD
OLD MONGILET
MOONLIGHT
THE FIRST SNOWFALL
SUNDAYS OF A BOURGEOIS
A RECOLLECTION
OUR LETTERS
THE LOVE OF LONG AGO
FRIEND JOSEPH
THE EFFEMINATES
OLD AMABLE

TOINE

He was known for thirty miles round was father Toine--fat Toine,
Toine-my-extra, Antoine Macheble, nicknamed Burnt-Brandy--the innkeeper
of Tournevent.

It was he who had made famous this hamlet buried in a niche in the
valley that led down to the sea, a poor little peasants' hamlet
consisting of ten Norman cottages surrounded by ditches and trees.

The houses were hidden behind a curve which had given the place the name
of Tournevent. It seemed to have sought shelter in this ravine overgrown
with grass and rushes, from the keen, salt sea wind--the ocean wind that
devours and burns like fire, that drys up and withers like the sharpest
frost of winter, just as birds seek shelter in the furrows of the fields
in time of storm.

But the whole hamlet seemed to be the property of Antoine
Macheble, nicknamed Burnt-Brandy, who was called also Toine, or
Toine-My-Extra-Special, the latter in consequence of a phrase current in
his mouth:

"My Extra-Special is the best in France:"

His "Extra-Special" was, of course, his cognac.

For the last twenty years he had served the whole countryside with his
Extra-Special and his "Burnt-Brandy," for whenever he was asked: "What
shall I drink, Toine?" he invariably answered: "A burnt-brandy, my
son-in-law; that warms the inside and clears the h