He entered a little street in which there were many gardens. Some of them are enclosed only by hedges, which lends a cheerful aspect to the street. In the midst of these gardens and hedges he caught sight of a small house of a single story, the window of which was lighted up. He peered through the pane as he had done at the public house. Within was a large whitewashed room, with a bed draped in printed cotton stuff, and a cradle in one corner, a few wooden chairs, and a double-barrelled gun hanging on the wall. A table was spread in the centre of the room. A copper lamp illuminated the tablecloth of coarse white linen, the pewter jug shining like silver, and filled with wine, and the brown, smoking soup-tureen. At this table sat a man of about forty, with a merry and open countenance, who was dandling a little child on his knees. Close by a very young woman was nursing another child. The father was laughing, the child was laughing, the mother was smiling. The stranger paused a moment in reverie before this tender and calming spectacle. What was taking place within him? He alone could have told. It is probable that he thought that this joyous house would be hospitable, and that, in a place where he beheld so much happiness, he would find perhaps a little pity. He tapped on the pane with a very small and feeble knock. They did not hear him. He tapped again. He heard the woman say, “It seems to me, husband, that some one is knocking.” “No,” replied the husband. He tapped a third time. The husband rose, took the lamp, and went to the door, which he opened. He was a man of lofty stature, half peasant, half artisan. He wore a huge leather apron, which reached to his left shoulder, and which a hammer, a red handkerchief, a powder-horn, and all sorts of objects which were upheld by the girdle, as in a pocket, caused to bulge out. He carried his head thrown backwards; his shirt, widely opened and turned back, displayed his bull neck, white and bare. He had thick eyelashes, enormous black whiskers, prominent eyes, the lower part of his face like a snout; and besides all this, that air of being on his own ground, which is indescribable. “Pardon me, sir,” said the wayfarer, “Could you, in consideration of payment, give me a plate of soup and a corner of that shed yonder in the garden, in which to sleep? Tell me; can you? For money?” “Who are you?” demanded the master of the house. The man replied: “I have just come from Puy-Moisson. I have walked all day long. I have travelled twelve leagues. Can you?—if I pay?” “I would not refuse,” said the peasant, “to lodge any respectable man who would pay me. But why do you not go to the inn?” “There is no room.” “Bah! Impossible. This is neither a fair nor a market day. Have you been to Labarre?” “Yes.” “Well?” The traveller replied with embarrassment: “I do not know. He did not receive me.” “Have you been to What’s-his-name’s, in the Rue Chaffaut?”