"What do you say to that, my son? Flabbergasts you, eh?"
How did the King come to know the singer? And why had he asked with so much interest if "they were biting this year"? One of the local papers reported the incident and supplied the explanation, which I did not trouble to verify, but which is so amusing and, at the same time, probable that I give it here. The King, it seems, who often walked to the Lac du Bourget, a few miles from Aix, thought that he would try his hand at fishing, one afternoon. Taking the necessary tackle with him, he sat down on the shore of the lake and cast his line. Ten minutes, twenty minutes passed. Not a bite. The King felt the more annoyed as, thirty yards from where he was, a man—a stranger like himself—was pulling up his line at every moment with a trout or a bream wriggling at the end of it.
The disheartened King ended by deciding to go up to the angler and ask him how he managed to catch so many fish! But before he was able to say a word, the man stood up, bowed with great ceremony and, in a stentorian voice, said:
"Sir, Your Majesty...."
"What! Do you know me?" asked the King.
"Sir, Your Majesty, let me introduce myself: Sabadon, second heavy bass at the Théâtre du Capitole of Toulouse, at this moment first chorus-leader at the Théâtre Municipal of Aix-les-Bains. I have seen you in the stage-box."
"Ah!" said the King, taken aback. "But please explain to me why you get so many fish, whereas...."
"Habit, Sir, Your Majesty, a trick of the hand and personal fascination; it needs an education; I got mine at Pinsaquel, near Toulouse, at the junction of the Ariège and the Gavonne.... Ah, Pinsaquel!"
And Sabadon's voice was filled with all the pangs of homesickness: