“Twelve homes! Why, there ain’t one there!”
One stable door nearby wears the legend in large scrawling letters; “Sherman was right.” At first the owner was furious at this defacement of his property, but when someone explained the significance of the words to him, he became mollified and even took a pride in them.
“Where are you stopping?” asks one boy of another.
“Me? Oh, at the Hotel de Barn, four manure-heaps straight ahead and two to the right.”
The distinguishing feature of the Maison Chaput is the corner-stone. This shows as a white stone tablet at one side of the door. On it is carved “Laid by the hand of Emil Chaput, aged one year. Anno. 1842.” It is the same Emil Chaput who with his tiny baby hand “laid” the corner-stone who is now our genial host.
“It is droll,” said Madame; “When strangers come to town they must always stop and read the corner-stone. They think the tablet is placed there to mark the birthplace of some famous man.”
The Gendarme and I,—Madame has christened G—— my companion the Gendarme on account of her vigorous brisk bearing,—live in the Salle des Assiettes, at least that is what I have named it, for the walls of the room which evidently in more pretentious days served as a salle à manger, are literally covered with the most beautiful old plates. Not being a connoisseur I don’t know what their history is nor what might be their value; I only know that they are altogether lovely. The designs are delicious; flowers, insects, birds, little houses, Chinamen fishing in tiny boats, interspersed with spirited representations of the Gallic cock in rose and scarlet. I exclaimed over them to Madame, whereat Monsieur, candle in hand, bustled across the room and called on me to regard one in particular.
“Ça coute,” he averred proudly, “quarante francs!”
Since that moment I have been vaguely uneasy. What if, in a moment of exasperation, I should throw an ink-bottle at the Gendarme’s head, and—shatter a plate worth forty francs!
Our room is the third one back. The front room is kitchen, dining and living room. The in-between room is quite bare of furniture, lined all about with panelled cupboards, and quite without light or air except that which filters in through the opened doors. In one of these cupboards Monsieur le Commandant spends his nights. When the hour for retiring comes, he opens a little panelled door and climbs into the hole in the wall thus revealed, leaving the door a crack open after him. When we pass through on our way to breakfast we hurry by the cupboard with averted faces. The family Chaput are not early risers.