stide snatched him up and
he "goo'd" again. At last Aristide fed him desperately, dandled him
eventually to sleep, and returned to an excited pillow. It is a fearsome
thing for a man to be left alone in the dead of night with a young baby.

"I'll get used to it," said Aristide.

The next morning he purchased a basket, which he lashed ingeniously on
the left-hand seat of the car, and a cushion, which he fitted into the
basket. The berth prepared, he deposited the sumptuously-apparelled Jean
therein and drove away, amid the perplexed benisons of the landlady and
her satellites.

Thus began the oddest Odyssey on which ever mortals embarked. The man
with the automobile, the corn-cure, and the baby grew to be legendary in
the villages of Provence. When the days were fine, Jean in his basket
assisted at the dramatic performance in the market-place. Becoming a
magnet for the women, and being of a good-humoured and rollicking
nature, he helped on the sale of the cure prodigiously. He earned his
keep, as Aristide declared in exultation. Soon Aristide formed a
collection of his tricks and doings wherewith he would entertain the
chance acquaintances of his vagabondage. To a permanent companion he
would have grown insufferable. He invented him a career from the day of
his birth, chronicled the coming of the first tooth, wept over the
demise of the fictitious mother, and, in his imaginative way, convinced
himself of his fatherhood. And every day the child crept deeper into the
man's sunny heart.

[Illustration: IT IS A FEARSOME THING FOR A MAN TO BE LEFT ALONE IN THE
DEAD OF NIGHT WITH A YOUNG BABY]

Together they had many wanderings and many adventures. The wheezy, crazy
mechanism of the car went to bits in unexpected places. They tobogganed
down hills without a brake at the imminent peril of their lives. They
suffered the indignity of being towed by wine-wagons. They spent hours
by the wayside while Aristide took her to pieces and, sometimes with the
help of a passing motorist, put her together again. Sometimes, too, an
inn boasted no landlady, only a dishevelled and over-driven chambermaid,
who refused to wash Jean. Aristide washed and powdered Jean himself, the
landlord lounging by, pipe in mouth, administering suggestions. Once
Jean grew ill, and Aristide in terror summoned the doctor, who told him
that he had filled the child up with milk to bursting-point. Yet, in
spite of heterogeneous nursing and expos