Having mentioned the oysters, we ought also to record their excellence. Catherine flew about the salle à manger, served us with her own hands, and gave us her whole attention, for we had the room to ourselves. She was proud of our praise.
"There is nothing better than our lobsters and oysters," she remarked. "I always say so, and Mirmiton always brings us the best of the good. But to-day it was Madame who came in. Ah! the Cat!" laughing satirically. "The cat comes in for everything, everywhere. She is a domestic animal invented for two reasons: to catch mice and to furnish an excuse for whatever happens. I dare affirm it was a glass too much and not the cat that caused the bon homme to sprain his ankle."
But we who had heard Madame Mirmiton's chapter and verse, were of a different opinion. Every rule has an exception, and the cat is certainly in fault—sometimes.
We started for St. Thégonnec. Monsieur packed us into the victoria, a heavy vehicle well matched by the horse and the man. We should certainly not fly on the wings of the wind.
"Take umbrellas," cried Madame Hellard, prudently, from the doorway. "Remember your drenching that day, and what fatal consequences might have happened."
But we saw no necessity for umbrellas to-day, for there was not a cloud in the sky.
"Still, to please you, I will take my macintosh," said H.C.; "it is hanging up in the hall."
But the macintosh had disappeared. A traveller who had left by the last train had good-naturedly appropriated it to his own use and service. It was that admirable macintosh that has already adorned these pages, with the cape finished off with fish-hooks for carrying old china, brown paper parcels and headless images; and as the invention was not yet patented, the loss was serious. H.C. lamented openly.
"I only hope," he said, "that the man who has taken it will put it on inside out, and that all the fish-hooks will stick into him." The most revengeful saying his gentle mind had ever uttered.
"C'est encore le chat!" screamed Catherine, who was leaning out of a first-floor window of the salle à manger, quite undaunted by Madame Hellard's reproving "Voyons, voyons, Catherine!"