The features were perhaps not a perfect likeness, but as we had not had the time to make a new statue we had just taken an old wooden figure, which we found stuck away in the garret of the Town Hall. We did not know who or what it represented, but on the pedestal was the half-effaced name of Balthazar, which we afterward shortened to Balduke. No one cared whether the statue resembled the Duke or not; statues seldom do look like the people that they are supposed to represent; witness those of the saints, or our Lord Himself; but to the eye of faith they are perfectly satisfactory, and as a devout believer sees his god in a log of wood, just so that day we saw our Duke before us. All obstacles being removed, his Lordship proudly entered his own meadows, and we naturally followed; banners waving, drums beating, trumpets sounding, and the Holy Sacrament as a fitting climax. No loyal subject would have dared to offer any objection, so even the sulky Captain was obliged to choose between stopping the Duke or following him, and he decided to fall into step with us. And now, with victory in sight, we very nearly came to grief at the eleventh hour; for a dispute arose as to who should pass in first, and all considerations due to age or sex were completely forgotten. St. Eloi and St. Nicholas jostled one another, St. Joseph was rude to his mother-in-law: and as we were all somewhat over-excited, the consequences might have been serious. Fortunately I was able to intervene with success; having a foot in every camp. My name is Nicholas, my trade is under the protection of Sts. Joseph and Anne, and the patron of vineyards, St. Vincent, may be called my foster brother, as he and I have sucked at the same breast; so I belong to all the saints, if only they are on my side. Just then I happened to spy a country cart passing, and who should be lurching along beside it but my friend Gambi? “Comrades!” I cried, “we must not try to get ahead of each other on this glorious day; the greatest among us is here;--after the Duke, of course! so give three cheers for Bacchus!” Whereupon I caught Gambi by the slack of his breeches and threw him up into the cart, where he alighted in a cask of grapes; then seizing the reins, we drove in triumphantly; first Bacchus sitting in his cask, kicking his legs and laughing fit to kill himself; and then all the procession following arm in arm, dancing with joy. It was delightful to be once more in our dear Meadows; and there we stayed all day, and far into the night, cooking, eating, and playing around the statue of the good Duke. The place looked like a pigsty the next day; there was not a single blade of grass left, and the print of our feet was stamped deep all over the ground, as a proof of the devotion with which his loyal subjects had feasted their suzerain. He must have been hard to please if he was not satisfied, and we on our part were delighted with the events of the day.