“Ho! faith, will you soon have finished?” The wheelwright turned a deaf ear and went on planing, singing: “Attendez-moi sur l’orme; Vous m’attendrez longtemps.” “I don’t think he hears me,” said Death. “Ho! friend, are you ready?” “Va-t-en voir s’ils viennent, Jean, Va-t-en voir s’ils viennent,” replied the singer. “Would the brute laugh at me?” said Death to himself. And he tried to rise. To his great surprise he could not detach himself from the _causeuse_. He then understood that he was the sport of a superior power. “Let us see,” he said to Roger. “What will you take to let me go? Do you wish me to prolong your life ten years?” “J’ai de bon tabac dans ma tabatière,” sang the great golfer. “Will you take twenty years?” “Il pleut, il pleut, bergère; Rentre tes blancs moutons.” “Will you take a fifty, wheelwright?--may the devil admire you!” The wheelwright of Coq intoned: “Bon voyage, cher Dumollet, A Saint-Malo débarquez sans naufrage.” In the meanwhile the clock of Condé had just struck four, and the boys were coming out of school. The sight of this great dry heron of a creature who struggled on the _causeuse_, like a devil in a holy-water pot, surprised and soon delighted them. Never suspecting that when seated at the door of the old, Death watches the young, they thought it funny to put out their tongues at him, singing in chorus: “Bon voyage, cher Dumollet, A Saint-Malo débarquez sans naufrage.” “Will you take a hundred years?” yelled Death. “Hein? How? What? Were you not speaking of an extension of a hundred years? I accept with all my heart, master; but let us understand: I am not such a fool as to ask for the lengthening of my old age.” “Then what do you want?” “From old age I only ask the experience which it gives by degrees. ‘Si jeunesse savait, si vieillesse pouvait!’ says the proverb. I wish to preserve for a hundred years the strength of a young man, and to acquire the knowledge of an old one.” “So be it,” said Death; “I shall return this day a hundred years.” “Bon voyage, cher Dumollet, A Saint-Malo débarquez sans naufrage.” XI The great golfer began a new life. At first he enjoyed perfect happiness, which was increased by the certainty of its not ending for a hundred years. Thanks to his experience, he so well understood the management of his affairs that he could leave his mallet and shut up shop.[24] [24] _Vivre à porte close._ He experienced, nevertheless, an annoyance he had not foreseen. His wonderful skill at golf ended by frightening the players whom he had at first delighted, and was the cause of his never finding any one who would play against him.