preface to conversation; to omit it is to show
lack of breeding and to court hostility. Therefore, N.B. _Rule in
travelling_--Bow to everybody. And this, by the way, is, after all,
only _Sir Pertinax Macsycophant's_ receipt for getting on in the world
by "boo'ing and boo'ing."

We pass through a courtyard, reminding me of the kind of courtyard
still to be seen in some of our old London City houses-of-business.
This, however, is modernised with whitewash. Here also, it being a
Continental court-yard, are the inevitable orange-trees in huge green
tubs placed at the four corners. A few pigeons feeding, a blinking
cat curled up on a mat, pretending to take no sort of interest in the
birds, and a little child playing with a cart. Such is this picture.
Externally, not much like a house of business; but it is, and of big
business too. We enter a cool and tastefully furnished apartment.
Here M. VESQUIER receives us cordially. He has a military bearing,
suggesting the idea of a Colonel _en retraite_. I am preparing
compliments and interrogatories in French, when he says, in good plain
English, with scarcely an accent--

"Now DAUBINET has brought you here, we must show you the calves, and
then back to breakfast. Will that suit you?"

"Perfectly." I think to myself--why "calves"? It sounded like
"calves," only without the "S." Must ask presently.

M. VESQUIER begs to be excused for a minute; he will return directly.
I look to DAUBINET for an explanation. "We are, then, going to see a
farm, I presume?" I say to him. "Farm!" exclaims DAUBINET, surprised.
"_Que voulez-vous dire, mon cher?_"--"Well, didn't Mister--Mister--"
"VESQUIER," suggests DAUBINET.

"Yes, Mister VESQUIER--didn't he say we were to go and 'see the
calves'?--_C'est a dire_," I translate, in despair at DAUBINET's
utterly puzzled look, "_que nous irons avec lui a la ferme pour voir
les veaux_--the calves."--"Ha! ha! ha!" Off goes DAUBINET into a roar.
Evidently I've made some extraordinary mistake. It flashes across me
suddenly. Owing to M. VESQUIER's speaking such excellent English, it
never occurred to me that he had suddenly interpolated the French word
"_caves_" as an anglicised French word into his speech to me. This
accounts for his suppression of the final consonant.

[Illustration]

"Ah!" I exclaim, suddenly enlightened; "I see--the cellars."

"_Pou ni my?_" cries DAUBINET, still in ecstasies, and speaking
Russian or modern Greek. "_Da!_--of course-