ied tone. "What do you want
of him at this hour, when all honest people are in bed?"

Pushing the servant aside, the peasant came up to him, and said, making
not the slightest attempt at politeness,--

"I come to tell you to send the fire-engine."

"The engine!"

"Yes; at once. Make haste!"

The mayor shook his head.

"Hm!" he said, according to a habit he had when he was at a loss what to
do; "hm, hm!"

And who would not have been embarrassed in his place?

To get the engine out, and to assemble the firemen, he had to rouse the
whole town; and to do this in the middle of the night was nothing less
than to frighten the poor people of Sauveterre, who had heard the drums
beating the alarm but too often during the war with the Germans, and
then again during the reign of the Commune. Therefore M. Seneschal
asked,--

"Is it a serious fire?"

"Serious!" exclaimed the peasant. "How could it be otherwise with such a
wind as this,--a wind that would blow off the horns of our oxen."

"Hm!" uttered the mayor again. "Hm, hm!"

It was not exactly the first time, since he was mayor of Sauveterre,
that he was thus roused by a peasant, who came and cried under his
window, "Help! Fire, fire!"

At first, filled with compassion, he had hastily called out the firemen,
put himself at their head, and hurried to the fire.

And when they reached it, out of breath, and perspiring, after having
made two or three miles at double-quick, they found what? A wretched
heap of straw, worth about ten dollars, and almost consumed by the fire.
They had had their trouble for nothing.

The peasants in the neighborhood had cried, "Wolf!" so often, when there
was no reason for it, that, even when the wolf really was there, the
townspeople were slow in believing it.

"Let us see," said M. Seneschal: "what is burning?"

The peasant seemed to be furious at all these delays, and bit his long
whip.

"Must I tell you again and again," he said, "that every thing is on
fire,--barns, outhouses, haystacks, the houses, the old castle, and
every thing? If you wait much longer, you won't find one stone upon
another in Valpinson."

The effect produced by this name was prodigious.

"What?" asked the mayor in a half-stifled voice, "Valpinson is on fire?"

"Yes."

"At Count Claudieuse's?"

"Of course."

"Fool! Why did you not say so at once?" exclaimed the mayor.

He hesitated no longer.

"Quick!" he said to his servant, "go and get me my c