“Go and get another bottle,” said Tonsard to his daughter.  “If your father really had an otter, he would show it to us,” he added, speaking to his wife and trying to touch up Fourchon.

“I’m too afraid it would get into your frying-pan,” said the old man, winking one of his little green eyes at his daughter.  “Philippine has already hooked my five-franc piece; and how many more haven’t you bagged under pretence of clothing me and feeding me? and now you say that my stomach is too lively, and that I go half-naked.”

“You sold your last clothes to drink boiled wine at the Cafe de la Paix, papa,” said his daughter, “though Vermichel tried to prevent it.”

“Vermichel! the man I treated!  Vermichel is incapable of betraying my friendship.  It must have been that lump of old lard on two legs that he is not ashamed to call his wife!”

“He or she,” replied Tonsard, “or Bonnebault.”

“If it was Bonnebault,” cried Fourchon, “he who is one of the pillars of the place, I’ll—­I’ll—­Enough!”

“You old sot, what has all that got to do with having sold your clothes?  You sold them because you did sell them; you’re of age!” said Tonsard, slapping the old man’s knee.  “Come, do honor to my drink and redden up your throat!  The father of Mam Tonsard has a right to do so; and isn’t that better than spending your silver at Socquard’s?”

“What a shame it is that you have been fifteen years playing for people to dance at Tivoli and you have never yet found out how Socquard cooks his wine,—­you who are so shrewd!” said his daughter; “and yet you know very well that if we had the secret we should soon get as rich as Rigou.”

Throughout the Morvan, and in that region of Burgundy which lies at its feet on the side toward Paris, this boiled wine with which Mam Tonsard reproached her father is a rather costly beverage which plays a great part in the life of the peasantry, and is made by all grocers and wine-dealers, and wherever a drinking-shop exists.  This precious liquor, made of choice wine, sugar, and cinnamon and other spices, is preferable to all those disguises or mixtures of brandy called ratafia, one-hundred-and-seven, brave man’s cordial, black currant wine, vespetro, spirit-of-sun, etc.  Boiled wine is found throughout France and Switzerland.  Among the Jura, and in the wild districts trodden only by a few special tourists, the innkeepers call it, on the word of commercial travellers, the wine of Syracuse.  Excellent it is, however, and their guests, hungry as hounds after ascending the surrounding peaks, very gladly pay three and four francs a bottle for it.  In the homes of the Morvan and in Burgundy the least illness or the slightest agitation of the nerves is an excuse for boiled wine.  Before and after childbirth the women take it with the addition of burnt sugar.  Boiled wine has soaked up the property of many a peasant, and more than once the seductive liquid has been the cause of marital chastisement.