Thus did we chat over our dinner, which was really excellent, the host’s eulogy on the Meuse trout being admirably sustained by their merits; nor did his flask of Haut-Brion lower the character of his cellar. Still no note of preparation seemed to indicate any arrangements for our departure; and although, sooth to say, I could have reconciled myself wonderfully to the inconvenience of the Toison d’Or for the whole week if necessary, Laura was becoming momentarily more impatient, as she said-- ‘_Do_ see if they are getting anything like a carriage ready, or even horses; we can ride, if they’ll only get us animals.’ As I entered the little kitchen of the inn, I found my host stretched at ease in a wicker chair, surrounded by a little atmosphere of smoke, through which his great round face loomed like the moon in the grotesque engravings one sees in old spelling-books. So far from giving himself any unnecessary trouble about our departure, he had never ventured beyond the precincts of the stove, contenting himself with a wholesome monologue on the impossibility of our desires, and that great Flemish consolation, that however we might chafe at first, time would calm us in the end. After a fruitless interrogation about the means of proceeding, I asked if there were no château in the vicinity where horses could be borrowed. He replied,’ No, not one for miles round.’ ‘Is there no mayor in the village--where is he?’ ‘I am the mayor,’ replied he, with a conscious dignity. ‘Alas!’ thought I, as the functionary of Givet crossed my mind, ‘why did I not remember that the mayor is always the most stupid of the whole community?’ ‘Then I think,’ said I, after a brief silence, ‘we had better see the curé at once.’ ‘I thought so,’ was the sententious reply. Without troubling my head why he ‘thought so,’ I begged that the curé might be informed that a gentleman at the inn begged to speak with him for a few minutes. ‘The Père José, I suppose?’ said the host significantly. ‘With all my heart,’ said I; ‘José or Pierre, it’s all alike to me.’ ‘He is there in waiting this half-hour,’ said the host, pointing with his thumb to a small salon off the kitchen. ‘Indeed!’ said I; ‘how very polite the attention! I ‘m really most grateful.’ With which, without delaying another moment, I pushed open the door, and entered. The Père José was a short, ruddy, astute-looking man of about fifty, dressed in the canonical habit of a Flemish priest, which from time and wear had lost much of its original freshness. He had barely time to unfasten a huge napkin, which he had tied around his neck during his devotion to a great mess of vegetable soup, when I made my bow to him. ‘The Père José, I believe?’ said I, as I took my seat opposite to him. ‘That unworthy priest!’ said he, wiping his lips, and throwing up his eyes with an expression not wholly devotional.