A torrential burst of rain had so replenished the meager Loire that the travelers reached the city of Saint Martin in a light boat, from which they saw some of the châteaux of Touraine. But at the riverside inns Antonio was as deeply engrossed in the common wines as in the neighboring architecture. As he drank them, white and red, he understood the wit and elegance of the Tourangeans, and wondered what the English would become if they could daily drink such draughts in place of their nerve-destroying tea, their brandied port, and their sluggish beer. But, although Mr. Crowberry senior had enjoined Antonio to show Mr. Crowberry junior as many cellars and vineyards as possible, the monk recognized the hopelessness of sending the brisk juices of the Loire to the stolid drinkers of the Thames; and therefore he pushed on through Poitiers and Angoulême to Bordeaux. At Bordeaux the two inquirers hired an imposing chariot. They were armed with letters of introduction to the great growers; and decency required that they should keep up appearances during their triumphal progress through the Medoc. The vintage was in full swing: but it lacked the gaiety of the vintage in Portugal. Most of the vintagers were strangers from Poitiers, who did their work, drew their pay, and went home to spend it. The little bush-vines also, though marvelously well tended, lacked the picturesqueness of Portugal: and Antonio almost excited his yellow-haired charge by describing the great bunches of purple grapes pending from the green roof of a pergola, or blooming like clustered plums high in some tree with which the vine was intertwined. The two were fêted at Brane Cantenac; patronized a little at the Château Margaux; treated respectfully at the Châteaux Lafitte, Leoville, and Larose; and received with open arms at the Château Latour. Young Crowberry expanded rapidly under the attentions which were lavished on him as the son of a big buyer: and it was only by hurrying him out of Pauillac in the nick of time that his mentor forestalled a desperate love-affair with a Basque maiden, dark and slender. As for Antonio, as an expert from Oporto, he was treated with deference, and he made the most of his opportunities. He would taste attentively the ripe grapes and then compare them with the wines of the same vineyard, both young and old.