“That’s one of the few things I’ve never been,” he replied. “No; I’m not a doctor. One of these days I’ll tell you all about myself.” He spoke as if our sudden acquaintance would ripen into life-long friendship. “There’s the hotel—the Hôtel Saint-Louis,” he pointed to the sign a little way up the narrow, old-world, cobble-paved street we were entering. “Leave it to me; I’ll see that they treat you properly.”
The car drew up at the doorway. My electric friend leaped out and met the emerging landlady.
“Bonjour, madame. I’ve brought you one of my very good friends, an English gentleman of the most high importance. He will have déjeuner—tout ce qu’il y a de mieux. None of your cabbage-soup and eels and andouilles, but a good omelette, some fresh fish, and a bit of very tender meat. Will that suit you?” he asked, turning to me.
“Excellently,” said I, smiling. “And since you’ve ordered me so charming a déjeuner, perhaps you’ll do me the honour of helping me to eat it?”
“With the very greatest pleasure,” said he, without a second’s hesitation.
We entered the small, stuffy dining-room, where a dingy waiter, with a dingier smile, showed us to a small table by the window. At the long table in the middle of the room sat the half-dozen frequenters of the house, their napkins tucked under their chins, eating in gloomy silence a dreary meal of the kind my new friend had deprecated.
“What shall we drink?” I asked, regarding with some disfavour the thin red and white wines in the decanters.
“Anything,” said he, “but this piquette du pays. It tastes like a mixture of sea-water and vinegar. It produces the look of patient suffering that you see on those gentlemen’s faces. You, who are not used to it, had better not venture. It would excoriate your throat. It would dislocate your pancreas. It would play the very devil with you. Adolphe”—he beckoned the waiter—“there’s a little white wine of the Côtes du Rhone——” He glanced at me.
“I’m in your hands,” said I.
As far as eating and drinking went I could not have been in better. Nor could anyone desire a more entertaining chance companion of travel. That he had thrust himself upon me in the most brazen manner and taken complete possession of me there could be no doubt. But it had all been done in the most irresistibly charming manner in the world. One entirely forgot the impudence of the fellow. I have since discovered that he did not lay himself out to be agreeable. The flow of talk and anecdote, the bright laughter that lit up a little joke, making it appear a very brilliant joke indeed, were all spontaneous. He was a man, too, of some cultivation. He knew France thoroughly, England pretty well; he had a discriminating taste in architecture, and waxed poetical over the beauties of Nature.