Poor Auguste Lafarge was at that period a fascinating youth, with fair, pink complexion as I have said; a complexion which, under the disguise of health, hid the germs of consumption, the disease he later fell a victim to. Moreover, he had intellectual tastes, having been thrown into the literary atmosphere of the time, and he numbered Désaugiers, Béranger, and Armand Gouffé among his friends; he composed dainty songs, and, as though born wealthy, he knew how to draw a gold piece out of his pocket and fling it down carelessly in payment for the smallest article he bought.
Such a man of fashion could not, of course, sleep at the back of his father's shop; so they borrowed one of our rooms, which we willingly gave up to him, and Auguste was established in our quarters.
Greedy after novelty, I was, of course, anxious to cultivate so personable a model, and I made advances to Auguste, whom, moreover, my mother held up to me as a pattern. Auguste accepted my overtures, and offered, what he thought might please me most, to take me on a grand bird-catching expedition.
I agreed. I had hitherto recognised Auguste's superiority in everything, but I quite hoped to bear away the palm in the matter of bird-catching.
I was wrong: we country people perform our bird-catching like artists; Auguste did his as a lord of the manor.
He sent for Boudoux, and asked him which were the best bird-snaring pools in the forest?
"Those near the Compiègne and Vivières roads," promptly answered Boudoux.
"How many other pools are there within, say, a league of this neighbourhood?"
"Seven or eight."
"So then, if we block all the other pools three or four days beforehand, the birds will be obliged to go to the two pools on the Vivières and Compiègne roads?"