“And throw out--vaguely, of course, very vaguely--that we are swells, but in strict _incog._” A great scoundrel was François; he was a Swiss, and could cheat any one, and, like a regular rogue, never happier than when you gave him a mission of deceit or duplicity. In a word, when I gave him his instructions, I regarded the negotiation as though it were completed, and now addressed myself to the task of looking after our supper, which, with national obstinacy, the landlord declared could not be ready before nine o'clock. As usual, Mrs. Keats had gone to bed immediately on arriving; but when sending me a “good-night” by her maid, she added, “that whenever supper was served, Miss Herbert would come down.” We had no sitting-room save the common room of the inn, a long, low-ceilinged, dreary chamber, with a huge green-tile stove in one corner, and down the centre a great oak table, which might have served about forty guests. At one end of this three covers were laid for us, the napkins enclosed in bone circlets, and the salt in great leaden receptacles, like big ink-bottles; a very ancient brass lamp giving its dim radiance over all. It was wearisome to sit down on the straight-backed wooden chairs, and not less irksome to walk on the gritty, sanded floor, and so I lounged in one of the windows, and watched the rain. As I looked, I saw the figure of a man with a fishing-basket and rod on his shoulder approaching the house. I guessed at once it was our stranger, and, opening the window a few inches, I listened to hear the dialogue between him and François. The window was enclosed in the same porch as the door, so that I could hear a good deal of what passed. François accosted him familiarly, questioned him as to his sport, and the size of the fish he had taken. I could not hear the reply, but I remarked that the stranger emptied his basket, and was despatching the contents in different directions: some were for the curé, and some for the postmaster, some for the brigadier of the gendarmerie, and one large trout for the miller's daughter. “A good-looking wench, I'll be sworn,” said François, as he heard the message delivered. Again the stranger said something, and I thought, from the tone, angrily, and François responded; and then I saw them walk apart for a few seconds, during which François seemed to have all the talk to himself,--a good omen, as it appeared to me, of success, and a sure warranty that the treaty was signed. Francois, however, did not come to report progress, and so I closed the window and sat down.