The first thing to be done was to wash off some of the accumulated dust; but when I asked for a bedroom for that purpose, I was conducted to a copper in the kitchen, the water in which had been a permanency for some time past, and was told to wash there.  As for supper, there was some cold mutton; but the landlady unfortunately opened the door of the cupboard as she said so, and displayed a state of things which decided the point against the mutton.  There was nothing else in the house, and there was no fire for cooking anything; but when they discovered that I really would not wait till the next morning, they proposed to light a fire and warm some soup, which I declined to see in its present state.  In the way of wine, I had been recommended to make a great point of the clairette de Die, an excellent species of vin mousseux; but the chief of the women rather recommended the ordinary wine of the country, as the monsieur might not like to give a strong price.  ’Was it, then, so strong?’ ‘Yes, the price was undoubtedly strong.’  ‘How much, then?’ ’A franc a bottle.’  With an eye to the future bill, the monsieur pretended to ponder awhile, as if in doubt whether his resources could stand such a strain, and then, with a reckless air, decided upon the extravagance.  The clairette proved to be quite worthy of the praise which had been bestowed upon it, being a very pleasant and harmless sparkling white wine.[93]

The neighbours kept dropping into the kitchen, to see how the landlady got on with the stranger of uncouth speech; and four of the female part of her company brought in at various times to the salle-a-manger some piece of table-furniture, in order to indulge in a closer view than the open door of the room afforded.  One of them told me she had seen an Englishman once before, a few months back; but he only had one eye, and she seemed to think I was out of order in possessing two.  At length the soup came, and the first attempt upon it proved it to be utterly impossible.  The landlady was called in, and this fact was announced to her.  ’What to do, then?—­it was a good soup, a soup which the people of Die loved,—­it was a soup the household eat morning and night.’  All the same, it was not a soup the present Englishman could eat, and some other sort of food must be provided, for she declined to furnish soup without garlic and fat.  She suggested an omelette; but a natural generalisation from all I had so far seen drew an untempting picture of the probable state of the frying-pan, and I declined to face the idea until I was convinced there was nothing else to be had.  But, alas! notwithstanding the righteous indignation with which the landlady met my request that the omelette might not be all fat, the manipulation of the eggs eventuated in a dish even more impracticable than the soup, flooded with unmentionable grease, and so at last the cold mutton became a necessity.  To show how hunger may work upon the feelings, I may say that, in spite of the