I invited him to enter.
"Do you find yourself comfortable here, son?"
"Yes. I consider myself privileged to have the use of the room. Have a cigarette?"
"Are these American cigarettes?"
"Yes."
"Your American tobacco is fine, son. But in America everybody is a millionaire and has the best of everything—isn't that so? I should like to go to America."
"A Frenchman is never happy out of France."
Comfortably seated in a big, ugly chair, he puffed his cigarette and meditated.
"Perhaps you are right," he admitted. "We Frenchmen love the good things, and think we can get them in France better than anywhere else. The solid satisfactions of life—good wine—good cheese." He paused. "You see, son, all that (tout ça) is an affair of mine—in civilian life (dans le civil) I am a grocer at Macon in Bourgogne."
For a little while we talked of Burgundy, which I had often visited in my student days at Lyons. There came another pause, and the Burgundian said:—