‘Is not this a proof of memory?’ cried he. ‘How could you call it a fiddle if you did not know it to be a fiddle? and in this case to know is to remember.’
‘You reason well,’ I said smiling, and a sad smile I fear it was that I gave him. ‘You converse as one who has been well educated.’
‘I was very well educated, madame,’ he answered. ‘Those of our condition in England are not so well educated as we of France. We owe much to the priests. There are no such schoolmasters in the world. Otherwise I do not love priests. I am an infidel, and my opinions coincide with those of Voltaire and Volney. What is your religion, madame?’
I was unable to answer him. He put his fiddle against his shoulder and asked if he should play me a tune and sing me a song. I begged him to do so and forthwith he played and sang. He sang some merry French rhymes and the air was very lively and pretty.
Hardly had he ended his song when a lad with a dirty face and a quantity of brown hair hanging over his eyes came shambling down the stairs, bearing a large teapot and a dish of fried ham. Alphonse surveyed him with disgust, and withdrew to his cabin to put away his fiddle. The boy prepared the table for a repast that I afterwards understood was called supper by the Frenchmen. He lifted the lid of one of the large dark fixed boxes and brought out some plates and cups and saucers which he placed upon the table. He breathed hard and idled in his business of furnishing the table that he might stare at me. The meal, when ready, consisted of tea, ham, large brown biscuits, marmalade, and a great piece of cold sausage. Alphonse returned and stood looking at the table.
‘This would not do for an English milord to sit down to,’ said he, ‘it would make him swear, and certainly your English milord knows how to swear. I should not like to wait upon company at such a table as this. But it is the sea—that sea which the English people love, but about which they know less than the French, though they talk much of their dominion maritime. Is there nothing on the table,’ he added with a comprehensive gesture of the hand, ‘that gives you an idea, madame?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Can you pronounce the names of what you see?’
‘Yes.’