eded to divest
himself of the better part of his raiment, and play gymnastics on his
mother's lap, and thence on to the floor, with accompaniment of
laughter.

"Are you going to sleep alone?" asked the servant lass.

"There's little fear of that," says Master Gilliard.

"You sleep alone at school," objected his mother. "Come, come, you must
be a man."

But he protested that school was a different matter from the holidays;
that there were dormitories at school; and silenced the discussion with
kisses: his mother smiling, no one better pleased than she.

There certainly was, as he phrased it, very little fear that he should
sleep alone; for there was but one bed for the trio. We, on our part,
had firmly protested against one man's accommodation for two; and we had
a double-bedded pen in the loft of the house, furnished, beside the
beds, with exactly three hat-pegs and one table. There was not so much
as a glass of water. But the window would open, by good fortune.

Some time before I fell asleep the loft was full of the sound of mighty
snoring: the Gilliards, and the labourers, and the people of the inn,
all at it, I suppose, with one consent. The young moon outside shone
very clearly over Pont-sur-Sambre, and down upon the alehouse where all
we pedlars were abed.

ON THE SAMBRE CANALISED

TO LANDRECIES

In the morning, when we came downstairs, the landlady pointed out to us
two pails of water behind the street-door. "_Voila de l'eau pour vous
debarbouiller_," says she. And so there we made a shift to wash
ourselves, while Madame Gilliard brushed the family boots on the outer
doorstep, and M. Hector, whistling cheerily, arranged some small goods
for the day's campaign in a portable chest of drawers, which formed a
part of his baggage. Meanwhile the child was letting off Waterloo
crackers all over the floor.

I wonder, by-the-bye, what they call Waterloo crackers in France;
perhaps Austerlitz crackers. There is a great deal in the point of view.
Do you remember the Frenchman who, travelling by way of Southampton, was
put down in Waterloo Station, and had to drive across Waterloo Bridge?
He had a mind to go home again, it seems.

Pont itself is on the river, but whereas it is ten minutes' walk from
Quartes by dry land, it is six weary kilometres by water. We left our
bags at the inn, and walked to our canoes through the wet orchards
unencumbered. Some of the children were there to see us off, but we we