So it happens that despite the daily advance of civilization the countryman continues to lead an elementary kind of life, knowing little of society save his obligation to pay taxes, finding nothing in life beyond the necessity to work without sufficient remuneration to provide for inevitable old age. His distractions, his pleasures, he finds in the Church, in fairs and the shows attached, in markets and the drinking appurtenant, with interludes of amorous expansion which will be granted to the veriest slave by the harshest master, interested in the continuance of a servile caste. It is true that aside from the joys of thought our average citizen, even with theatres and music halls, attains to no higher pleasures. To eat, to drink, to go out of their way to strip love of the dreams and idealism which make it beautiful, these, when all is said, compose the everlasting "life of pleasure" of our most assiduous "racketers." As love among peasants is unhampered by idealism, the countryman has the two other diversions left him, eating and drinking, which few mortals hold in contempt, as anybody can see. My friend Jean Piot, who for many years honourably occupied in broad sunlight a position between that of beggar and labourer by the day, or "odd jobber," was never one of those good for nothings who grumble over their task. In the wood yard he would do double work without flagging. On the other hand, he would have been ashamed of himself had he not taken as his legitimate reward an equivalent ration of "fun." Puritans, turn away your heads! Jean Piot, after his enormous share of work, exacted remuneration from Providence, in the shape of joys. In his youth, labour and joy went hand in hand. If the pay was not large in spite of the excellence of the work, neither, on the other hand, is the expense large, when a kiss only asks for a kiss in return, when the soup of beans, cabbage, potatoes, and the bacon to go with it, are plentiful, when the white wine demanded by the labourer with sweat on his brow is grudged him by no one. Jean Piot had no trade, or rather he had all trades. He was equally good as digger, teamster, herdsman, or plowman, he took as much pleasure in all toil connected with the earth as if he derived strength from it for his revels.