THE POPULAR MAN
The Mayor of Gigognan invited me, last year, to his village festivity. We had been for seven years comrades of the ink-horn at the school of Avignon, but since then had never met.
“By the blessing of God,” he cried on seeing me, “thou art just the same, lively as a blue-bottle, handsome as a new penny—straight as an arrow—I would have known thee in a thousand.”
“Yes, I am just the same,” I replied, “only my sight is a little shorter, my temples a little wrinkled, my hair a little whitened, and—when there is snow on the hills, the valleys are seldom hot.”
“Bah!” said he, “my dear boy, the old bull runs on a straight track, only he who desires it grows old. Come, come to dinner.”
According to time-honoured custom a village fête in Provence is the occasion for real feasting, and my friend Lassagne had not failed to prepare such a lordly feast as one might set before a king. Dressed lobster, fresh trout from the Sorgue, nothing but fine meats and choice wines, a little glass to whet the appetite at intervals, besides liqueurs of all sorts, and to wait on us at table a young girl of twenty who—I will say no more!
We had arrived at the dessert, when all at once we heard in the street the cheering buzz of the tambourine. The youth of the place had come, according to custom, to serenade the mayor.
“Open the door, Françonnette,” cried the worthy man. “Go fetch the hearth-cakes and come, rinse out the glasses.”
