I passed on into a pleasant rolling country. Beyond Nemours, where I spent the second night, I came upon two tramps. They were sitting in the shade of a giant oak, enjoying a breakfast of hard bread which they dipped, now and then, into a brook at their feet. They invited me to share their feast, but I explained that I had just had breakfast. After finishing they went on with me. They were miners on their way to the great coal-fields of St. Etienne. We were well acquainted in a very short time. They called me “mon vieux,” which means something like “old man” in our language, and greeted every foot-traveler they met by the same title.
There are stern laws in France against wandering from place to place. I knew that the three of us, traveling together, would be asked to explain our business. We were still some distance off from the first village when I saw an officer step from the door of a small building and walk out into the middle of the road to wait for us.
“Where are you going?” he demanded sternly.
“To St. Etienne.”
“And your papers?”
“Here!” cried the miners, each snatching a worn-looking book from a pocket under his coat.
The gendarme stuffed one of the books under an arm, and began to look through the other. Between its greasy covers was a complete history of its owner. It told when he was born and where; where he was baptized; when he had been a soldier, and how he had behaved during his three years in the army; and so on, page after page. Then came pages that told where he had worked, what his employer thought of him, with wages, dates, and reasons why he had stopped working at that particular place. It took the gendarme a long time to look through it.
He finished examining both books at last, and handed them back with a gruff “Well!”
“Next yours,” he growled.
“Here it is,” I answered, and pulled from my pocket a letter of introduction written to American consuls and signed by our Secretary of State.