A conical basket of
lettuce heads was on his back, and he used the handle of his hoe as a
cane.

"Did you know Lamy?" I inquired.

"Lamy was a boy in this town when I was a grown man going to my work.
I used to pass him playing on this very spot," he answered.

As we walked along toward the main street, we asked whether there were
others from Mougins who, like Lamy, had played a part in the history of
France abroad. No, the people of Mougins liked to stay at home.
Fortunately for the prosperity of the country, the young men returned
after their military service, and the attractions and opportunities of
city life rarely took them and held them farther away than Cannes and
Grasse. The Artist had his eye on the lettuce basket and the hoe, and
I wanted to hear more of life in Mougins. We asked the old man to
share a bottle with us.

The _cocher_ was waiting in front of a cafe, and corroborated the
statement on a huge painted sign, that here was to be found the true
_vin mousseux_ of Mougins. It was evident that we were not the first
tourists to come from Cannes. The _cocher_ was a friend of the
proprietress, who made us welcome in the way tourists are greeted.
Little cakes and a dusty bottle were produced promptly, and in the
stream of words that greeted us we could gather that this was a
red-letter occasion for us, and that it was possible to have the _vin
mousseux_ of Mougins shipped to Paris by the dozen or the hundred.
This annoyed us and dampened our ardor for the treat. The Artist and I
share a foolish feeling of wanting to be pioneers. We like to believe
that our travels take us out of the beaten path, and that we are
constantly discovering delectable places. After us the tourists--but
not before!

The corkscrew of the proprietress, however, consoled us. A corkscrew
through whose handle the beaded pressure of gas escapes before the cork
is drawn may be common enough. But the fact remains that neither of us
had seen one. We expressed our delight and wonder, and the Artist
naively told the proprietress, before he tasted the wine, that he felt
rewarded for the trip to Mougins just for the discovery of the
corkscrew. After the first sip, I added that now we knew why we had
walked up the long hill. The proprietress and the _cocher_ beamed.
Our enthusiasm meant money to them. The old man twisted his mouth
contemptuously.

"Tell me, then," he said, "what was your thought of me when you saw me
coming