"First I lose my louis, and now I lose my ten francs! ah! _Sainte Vierge de Miséricorde!_" It was heart-rending. Sometimes they received more than the stipulated fee at these village weddings. They passed the hat round. If the guests were mellow with good wine, which makes folks generous, they often earned double the amount. And they always had as much as they liked to eat, and could take away scraps in a handkerchief. "And good wholesome nourishment, Monsieur. Once it was half a goose." And now there was nothing, nothing. Blanquette did not believe in the _bon Dieu_ any longer. She buried her face in her arms and wept. Paragot smoked helplessly for a few moments. I, unused to women's tears, felt the desolation of the race of Blanquette de Veau overspread me. But that I considered it to be beneath my dignity as a man, I should have wept too. Suddenly Paragot brought his fist down on the table and started to his feet. Blanquette lifted a scared wet face, dimly seen in the half light. "_Tonnerre de Dieu!_" cried he, "If you hold so much to your ten francs and half a goose, I myself will come with you to Chambéry tomorrow and fiddle at the wedding." "You, Monsieur?" she gasped. "Yes, I. Why not? Do you think I can't scrape catgut as well as Père Paragot?" He walked to and fro declaring his musical powers in his boastful way. If he chose he could rip out the hearts of a dead Municipal Council with a violin, and could set a hospital for paralytics a-dancing. He would have fiddled the children of Hamelin away from the Pied Piper. Didn't Blanquette believe him? "But yes, Monsieur," she said fervently. "Ask Asticot." My faith in him was absolute. To my mind he had even understated his abilities. The experience of the disillusioning years has since caused me to modify my opinions; but Paragot's boastfulness has not lessened him in my eyes. And this leads to a curious reflection. When a Gascon boasts, you love him for it; when a Prussian does it, your toes tingle to kick him to Berlin. His very whimsical braggadocio made Paragot adorable, and I am at a loss to think what he would have been without it. "Of course," said he, "if you are proud, if you don't want to be seen in the company of a scarecrow like me, there is nothing more to be said." Blanquette humbly repudiated the charge of pride. Her soul was set on her ten francs and she didn't care how she got them. She accepted Monsieur's generous offer out of a full heart. "That's sense," said my master. "We shall rehearse at daybreak." CHAPTER VI DAWN found us all in a field some distance from the café--Paragot, Blanquette, Narcisse, the zither, the fiddle and I, and while the two musicians rehearsed the jingly waltzes and polkas that made up the old man's répertoire, I tried to explain the situation to Narcisse who sat with his ears cocked wondering what the deuce all the noise was about. "Ah, Monsieur," said Blanquette, during a pause, "you play like a great artist."