were so many laggard halves of words to come out together, with so little breath to bring them out, that he eventuated in a stuttering scream.  His clothes were of such a description, that the most speculative Israelite would not have gone beyond copper for his wardrobe, all standing.  There were two women in the house, to whom he was exceedingly imperious:  one of them received his orders and his vehemence with a certain amount of defiance, but the other was subdued and obedient, and I believe her to have been the mayoress.  He poured himself and his household at my feet, knocked a child one way and his wife another, and, from the air with which he dragged off the tablecloth they had laid, and ordered a better, and swept away the glasses because they were not clean enough—­which in itself was sufficiently true,—­and screamed for poached eggs for monsieur, and then impetuously ate them himself—­I fancy that he might have been taught to play Petrucio with success.

When we had sat for a quarter of an hour or so, a heavy-looking young man, in fustian clothes and last year’s linen, came into the room, and was introduced as the communal schoolmaster.  We shook hands with much impressment on the strength of the similarity of our professions, and the maire explained that the new arrival acted also as his secretary, for there was really so much writing to be done that it was beyond his own powers; and as the schoolmaster lived en pension at the Mairie, it was very convenient.  M. Rosset, the schoolmaster, stated that he had heard us, as he sat in his room, talking of the proposed visit to the glaciere, and he should much wish to accompany us.  We both expressed the warmest satisfaction; but the maire suggested—­how about the boys?  That, M. Rosset said, was simple enough.  The world would go to the school at nine o’clock, and, finding no schoolmaster, would go home again, or otherwise employ itself; and he could have school on the weekly holiday, to make up for the lost day.  This weekly holiday is universally on Thursday, he said, because that day divides the week so well; and I failed to persuade him that there was a commemoration intended in the choice of that day, as in the observance of Friday and Sunday.  The maire utterly refused to take a cord, on the ground that there was no possibility of such a thing being of the least use.  Fortunately, I had now my own axe, which in more able hands had mounted more than once Mont Blanc and Monte Rosa, so I had not the usual fight to procure that instrument.

Half an hour from the Mairie, when we had well commenced the steep ascent of the mountain-side, the maire turned suddenly round and exclaimed, ‘But the inspector!’ Rosset was a sallow man, but he contrived to turn white, while M. Metral (the maire) explained to me that the inspector of schools was to visit Aviernoz that day.  The schoolmaster recovered before long, and said he should inform the inspector that a famous savant had come from England, and required that the maire and the instituteur should accompany him to the glaciere, to aid him in making scientific observations.  In order that he might have documentary proof to advance, he asked for my card, and made me write on it my college and university in full.