My hosts were worthy people; they gave me a little white-washed room, with a table of white wood, two straw-bottomed chairs, a good but thin mattress, and some cotton quilts. A wooden bed is a superfluity which the Greeks easily deny themselves, and we lived a la Grecque. I breakfasted on a cup of arrow-root; I dined on a plate of meat with many olives, and dry fish; I supped on vegetables, honey and cakes. Preserves were not rare in the house, and occasionally I evoked memories of home by dining on a leg of lamb and preserves. It is useless to tell you that I had my pipe, and that the tobacco in Athens is better than yours. That which contributed to my feeling perfectly at home in Christodule's house, was a light wine of Santorin, which he bought, I know not where. I am not a judge of wines, and the education of my palate has, unfortunately, been neglected, but I believe, however, that this wine is worthy of a place on a king's table: it is of a fine topaz color, sparkling as the smile of a child. I see it now, in its large bulging carafe, on the shining linen cloth. It lighted the table and we were able to sup without any other illumination. I never drank much of it, because it was heady; and yet, at the end of a meal, I have recited some of Anacreon's verses and I have discovered remains of beauty in the moon-shaped face of the gross Maroula. I ate with Christodule and his family. There were four regular boarders and one table boarder. The first floor was divided into four rooms, the best of which was occupied by a French Archaeologist, M. Hippolyte Mérinay. If all Frenchmen resemble this one, you would be a sorry lot. He was very small; his age, as far as one could tell, anywhere between eighteen and forty-five, very red-haired, very mild, very loquacious, and never loosening his moist and warm hands, when he had once fastened them on a person, until he had exhausted himself talking. His two dominant passions were archaeology and philanthropy: he was a member of many literary societies and of many benevolent associations. Although he was an advocate of charity, and his parents had left him a fine income, I do not remember ever to have seen him give a sou to a beggar. As for his knowledge of archaeology, I believe that it was of more account than his love for humanity. He had received a prize from some provincial College, for a treatise on the value of paper in the time of Orpheus. Encouraged by these first successes, he had come to Greece to gather material for a more important work: it was nothing less than to determine the quantity of oil consumed in Demosthenes' lamp while he wrote the second Philippic.