Yes: this place is good to wander in. Here comes an old man followed by a flock of tinkling goats. He stops before a house, and knocks at the door. The tinkling stops, too. Then a cup is handed out to him, to be filled from an accommodating goat. He hands it back quite full of warm milk. The door slams; the tinkling begins again. A very ancient, bent, bearded man, ragged and dirty, was sitting munching bread, on the steps that lead down from the _place_. "Would you like to give him half a franc?" I said to my wife. She would, very much. In a moment the two were in conversation. "Why do you give me this?" said the old man, looking down at the coin in his hand. "Because we saw you having déjeuner yesterday, and were interested. This is for to-day." "It is much for one who is poor. Are you French?" "No, English." "All the English are rich. Are you selling things here?" "No: I am making pictures for a book my husband is writing." "Ah! you gain much by that?" "Not very much. But we like it: we did a book on Provence once." "Ah Provence. I know Provence. I am from the Basses Alpes. I like Provence very much; you get such good wine there." "Don't you? Now I must go back to the Café--and finish _my_ wine." "Yes, and I'll finish mine." He put his head under the pump, and drank. [Illustration: TOUR DE LA MOTTE FORTE--ARNAY-LE-DUC _Facing page 182_] Then there was the Hotel Chrétien, as I think it was called; an establishment rather casually run, but marked by a bonhomie and insouciance that enlivened the monotony of wet days. The commercial travellers made themselves very much at home with Madame and the waitress. One of these gentlemen, in particular, subjected the latter to a flow of chaff that ceased not even with the coffee. He always began with a request to her to recite the ménu aloud, and whenever a lull came, he would turn to her, and say in the most innocent tone: "By the way, Madamoiselle, what have we to eat this evening?" "Is Monsieur stone deaf?" "Not at all, Mademoiselle; only hungry. And I like to regulate appetite by the dishes that are coming!" Dessert came on. The voluble one cut an apple in half. It was rotten. "Hey, Mademoiselle; regardez-moi ça. Il y en a une qui marche (There's one walking)." "So I see. He would willingly be quit of Monsieur." The other men would sit round sniggering--and occasionally chipping in; but they seldom got the better of the maid, who had a fund of repartee that I have rarely heard matched, even in France.