y happy. So happy that though we
wandered the next year over France and part of Germany the winter again
found us working in Rome. In the following Spring we set our faces
northward, and in July Destiny overtook us in Savoy.

CHAPTER V

IT was the late afternoon of a sweltering July day. The near hills
slumbered in the sunshine. Far away beyond them grey peaks of Alpine
spurs, patched with snow, rose in faint outline against the sky. The
valley lay in rich idleness, green and gold and fruitful, yielding
itself with a maternal largeness to the white fifteenth century chateau
on the hillside. A long white road stretched away to the left following
the convolutions of the valley, until it became a thread; on the right
it turned sharply by a clump of trees which marked a farm. In the middle
of it all, in the grateful shadow cast by a wayside cafe, sat Paragot
and myself, watching with thirsty eyes the buxom but slatternly
_patronne_ pour out beer from a bottle. A dirty, long-haired mongrel
terrier lapped water from an earthenware bowl, at the foot of the wooden
table at which we sat. This was Narcisse, a recent member of our
vagabond family, whom my master had casually adopted some weeks before
and had christened according to some _lucus a non lucendo_ principle of
his own. I think he was the least beautiful dog I have ever met; but I
loved him dearly.

Paragot drained his tumbler, handed it back to be refilled, drained it
again and cleared his throat with the contentment of a man whose thirst
has been slaked.

"Now one can spit," he exclaimed heartily.

"That is always a comfort to a man," remarked the _patronne_.

"It is the potentiality that is the comfort. Have you apartments for the
night, Madame?"

"They are for _des messieurs_--for gentlemen," said the patronne
diffidently.

Narcisse having also finished his draught stretched himself out on the
ground, his chin on his fore paws, and glanced furtively upwards at the
disparaging lady.

"_Tron de l'air!_" cried Paragot, "are we not gentlemen?"

"_Tiens_, you are of the Midi," cried the woman, recognising the
expletive--for no one born north of Avignon says "_Tron de l'air_"--"I
too am from Marseilles. My husband was a Savoyard. That is why I am
here."

"I am a gentleman of Gascony," said my master, "and this is my son
Asticot."

"It is a droll name," said the _patronne_.

"We are commercial travellers on our rounds with samples of philosophy."