I did not know until Pierre, who was waiting outside in the court, told me afterwards, that his entire staff of servants was composed of the boy with the blue apron and the cook—an old woman—the last of his faithful servitors, who now appeared with a tray of trembling glasses, followed by the boy, the dusty cobwebbed bottle of rare Musigny and—my dog!
Not a whole dog. But a flub-dub little spaniel puppy—very blond—with ridiculously long ears, a double-barrelled nose, a roly-poly stomach and four heavy unsteady legs that got in his way as he tried to navigate in a straight line to make my acquaintance.
"Voilà!" cried de Savignac. "Here he is. He'll make an indefatigable hunter, like his mother—wait until he is two years old—He'll stand to his day's work beside the best in France——"
"And what race is he? may I ask, Monsieur de Savignac."
"Gorgon—Gorgon of Poitou," he returned with enthusiasm. "They are getting as rare now as this," he declared, nodding to the cobwebbed bottle, as he rose, drew the cork, and filled my glass.
While we sipped and chatted, his talk grew merry with chuckles and laughter, for he spoke of the friends of his youth, who played for him and sang to him—the thing which he loved most of all, he told me. "Once," he confessed to me, "I slipped away and travelled to Hungary. Ah! how those good gipsies played for me there! I was drunk with their music for two weeks. It is stronger than wine, that music of the gipsies," he said knowingly.
Again our talk drifted to hunting, of the good old times when hares and partridges were plentiful, and so he ran on, warmed by the rare Musigny, reminiscing upon the old days and his old friends who were serious sportsmen, he declared, and knew the habits of the game they were after, for they seldom returned with an empty game-bag.
"And you are just as keen about shooting as ever?" I ventured.
"I shoot no more," he exclaimed with a shrug. "One must be a philosopher when one is past sixty—when one has no longer the solid legs to tramp with, nor the youth and the digestion to live. Ah! Besides, the life has changed—Paris was gay enough in my day. I lived then, but at sixty—I stopped—with my memories. No! no! beyond sixty it is quite impossible. One must be philosophic, eh?"