"I think so, monsieur; for I saw him in the distance on horseback, as if accompanying them."
"Have you ever been to Châteaubrun, Galuchet?"
"Yes, monsieur, I went there once when the masters were absent, and if I had known that I should find no one there but the old servant I wouldn't have been such a fool."
"Why?"
"Because I might have seen the château for nothing at another time, I have no doubt; whereas that old witch, after showing me around her den, demanded fifty centimes, monsieur, as the price of her condescension! It's a shame to bleed people for showing them such a ruin!"
"I thought that old Antoine had made some repairs since I was there."
"Repairs, monsieur! it's a pitiful sight! They have rebuilt one corner, about as big as your hand, and they didn't even have money enough to put wall-papers on their rooms. The master isn't half so well lodged as I am in your house! It's a depressing place, inside! Heaps of stones in the courtyard to break your legs over, nettles, brambles, no door under a great archway that resembles the entrance to the château of Vincennes and which would be pretty enough if they would give it a coat of plaster of Paris; but all the rest in such a state! Not a wall secure, not a staircase that doesn't shake, cracks big enough to hold a man, ivy that they don't even take the pains to tear down, although it would be easy enough, and rooms that have neither floor nor ceiling! On my word, the people hereabout are genuine Gascons for boasting about their old châteaux, and sending you about on break-neck roads, to find what?—ruins and thistles! Crozant is a stupendous fraud, and Châteaubrun is little better than Crozant!"
"So you were not charmed with Crozant either? But my son seemed to like it immensely, I'll be bound?"
"Monsieur Emile might very well like it, with such a pretty slip of a girl on his arm! If I had been in his shoes I shouldn't have complained overmuch about the place; but for my part, as I went there hoping to catch a trout and didn't get as much as a gudgeon, I am not very well satisfied with my walk, especially as it is twenty kilometres each way, making four myriameters on foot."
"Are you tired, Galuchet?"