"Ha! you speak French, monsieur," the other said at this; "also you have the bonne mine. English gentlemens is always gentlemens. Ha! I ver' please see you."--he was himself now speaking half English and half French. "Je vous salue. Lagos ver' triste. I always glad see gentlemens. Veuillez un verre de vin? C'est Français, vrai Français! Ver' goot."
"'Tis tempting," said the chaplain of the Pembroke, his face appearing to get more red than before at the invitation. "Well, we can do no harm in having a crack with him. Only--silence, remember," and he glanced at the officers. "Not a word of our doings--lately, now, or to come."
"Never fear," said the eldest. "We can play a better game than that would be," whereon the chaplain, after bowing gracefully to our would-be host, said in very fair French that, if he desired it, we would all drink a glass of wine with him--only he feared we were too many.
"Not a jot, not a jot," this strange creature cried, beckoning all of us into the house and forthwith leading us into a whitewashed room, in the middle of which was a table with, upon it, a great outre of wine, bound and supported by copper bands and flanked with a number of glasses, so that one might have thought he was ever offering entertainment to others. Then, with great dexterity, he filled the requisite number of glasses, and, after making us each touch his with ours, drank a toast.
"A la fin de la guerre," he said, after screaming, first, "Attention, messieurs," and rapping on the table with his glass to claim that attention, "à l'amitié incassable de la France et de l'Angleterre. Vivent, vivent, vivent la France et l'Angleterre," and down his throat went all the wine.
"A noble toast," said Mr. Beauvoir, with a gravity which--I know not why!--I did not think, somehow, was his natural attribute, "a noble toast. None--be he French or English--could refuse to pledge that," and, with a look at the others, away went his liquor, too, while my brother officers, with a queer look upon their faces, which seemed to express the thought that they scarce knew whether they ought to be carousing in this manner with the representative of an enemy, swallowed theirs.
"Ha! goot, ver' goot," our friend went on, "we will have some more." And in a twinkling he had replenished the glasses and got his own up to, or very near to, his lips. And catching a glance of Mr. Beauvoir's grey eye as he did this, I felt very sure that the reverend gentleman knew as well as I did, or suspected as well as I did, that these were by no means the first potations our friend had been indulging in this morning.
"Another toast," he cried now, "sacré nom d'un chien! we will drink more toasts. A la santé"--then paused, and muttered: "No, no. I cannot propose that. No. Ce n'est pas juste."
"What is not just, monsieur?" asked Mr. Beauvoir, pausing with his own uplifted glass.
"Why, figurez-vous, I was going to commit an impolitesse--what you call a rudesse--rudeness--in your English tongue. To propose the continued prosperity of France--no! vraiment il ne faut pas ça. Because you are my guests--I love the English gentlemens always--and it is so certain--so very certain."