weaning him
insensibly away from home, to use his vacation-times in learning to
be a man.

Last Long Vacation, in company with a friend he calls Jinks, Master
Dick took a Canadian canoe out to Bordeaux by steamer, and spent six
adventurous weeks in descending the Dordogne and exploring the
Garonne with its tributaries. On his return he walked over to find
me smoking in my garden after dinner, and gave me a gleeful account
of his itinerary.

". . . And the next place we came to was Bergerac," said he, after
ten minutes of it.

"Ah!" I murmured. "Bergerac!"

"You know it?"

"Passably well," said I. "It lies toward the edge of the claret
country; but it grows astonishing claret. When I was about your age
it grew a wine yet more astonishing."

"Hallo!" Master Dick paused in the act of lighting his pipe and
dropped the match hurriedly as the flame scorched his fingers.

"It was grown on a hill just outside the town--the Mont-Bazillac. I
once drank a bottle of it."

"Lord! You too? . . . _Do_ tell me what happened!"

"Never," I responded firmly. "The Mont-Bazillac is extinct, swept
out of existence by the phylloxera when you were a babe in arms.
_Infandum jubes renovare--_ no one any longer can tell you what that
wine was. They made it of the ripe grape. It had the raisin flavour
with something--no more than a hint--of Madeira in it: the leathery
tang--how to describe it?"

"You need not try, when I have two bottles of it at home, at this
moment!"

"When I tell you--" I began.

"Oh, but wait till you've heard the story!" he interrupted. "As I
was saying, we came to Bergerac and put up for the night at the
_Couronne d'Or_--first-class cooking. Besides ourselves there were
three French bagmen at the _table d'hote_. The usual sort. Jinks,
who talks worse French than I do (if that's possible), and doesn't
mind, got on terms with them at once. . . . For my part I can always
hit it off with a commercial--it's the sort of mind that appeals to
me--and these French bagmen _do_ know something about eating and
drinking. That's how it happened. One of them started chaffing us
about the _ordinaire_ we were drinking--quite a respectable tap, by
the way. He had heard that Englishmen drank only the strongest wine,
and drank it in any quantities. Then another said: 'Ah, messieurs,
if you would drink for the honour of England, _justement_ you should
match yourselves here in this town against the famous Mont-