There now remained a thing of the highest importance to attend to, namely, supper. I thought of providing the main foundation of this with game killed by my own hand; this would be both a pleasure and an economy. I went in search of M. Deviolaine, who gave me leave to shoot over the forest of la Ferté-Vidame. This was the more delightful as my old friend Gondon was inspector of it, and I was very sure he would not grudge a roebuck more or less. Furthermore, the permission included some friends as well as myself. I invited Clerjon de Champagny, Tony Johannot, Géniole and Louis Boulanger. My brother-in-law and nephew were to set out from Chartres and to turn up at the appointed hour at la Ferté-Vidame. I gave Gondon two days' notice in advance, so that he could procure the necessary beaters, and it was arranged that we should stop the night at an inn, the address of which he gave me; that we should sleep there; that we should shoot the whole of the following day, and that, according as we were too tired or not, we should either leave that evening or the next morning. We were to make the journey in a huge _berline_ which, somehow or other, I happened to possess. Everything decided upon was carried out punctiliously. We started between nine and ten in the morning. We reckoned upon arriving about six or seven in the evening, but snow overtook us when a third of our journey was done, and, instead of arriving at seven, it was midnight before we got there, and we had not had anything to warm us the whole of that long journey except the never-failing wit and charming spirits of Champagny, to which, as an accompaniment, was joined the noise of a tin trumpet which he had bought somewhere or other, I know not for what purpose, its droll sound affording the boon of making us shout with laughter.