“I would draw their attention, with all respect, to the fact that duty is not the same for Mormons, Arabs Zulus, Turks, Englishmen, and Frenchmen, and that there are very virtuous people among all these nations.

“I will cite a single example.  As regards women, duty begins in England at nine years of age; in France at fifteen.  As for me, I take a little of each people’s notion of duty, and of the whole I make a result comparable to the morality of good King Solomon.

“July 27th.—­Good news.  I have lost 620 grams in weight.  Excellent, this water of Chatel-Guyon!  I am taking the widows to dine at Riom.  A sad town whose anagram constitutes it an objectionable neighbor to healing springs:  Riom, Mori.

“July 28th.—­Hello, how’s this!  My two widows have been visited by two gentlemen who came to look for them.  Two widowers, without doubt.  They are leaving this evening.  They have written to me on fancy notepaper.

“July 29th.—­Alone!  Long excursion on foot to the extinct crater of Nachere.  Splendid view.

“July 30th.—­Nothing.  I am taking the treatment.

“July 31st.—­Ditto.  Ditto.  This pretty country is full of polluted streams.  I am drawing the notice of the municipality to the abominable sewer which poisons the road in front of the hotel.  All the kitchen refuse of the establishment is thrown into it.  This is a good way to breed cholera.

“August 1st.—­Nothing.  The treatment.

“August 2d.—­Admirable walk to Chateauneuf, a place of sojourn for rheumatic patients, where everybody is lame.  Nothing can be queerer than this population of cripples!

“August 3d.—­Nothing.  The treatment.

“August 4th.—­Ditto.  Ditto.

“August 5th.—­Ditto.  Ditto.

“August 6th.—­Despair!  I have just weighed myself.  I have gained 310 grams.  But then?

“August 7th.—­Drove sixty-six kilometres in a carriage on the mountain.  I will not mention the name of the country through respect for its women.

“This excursion had been pointed out to me as a beautiful one, and one that was rarely made.  After four hours on the road, I arrived at a rather pretty village on the banks of a river in the midst of an admirable wood of walnut trees.  I had not yet seen a forest of walnut trees of such dimensions in Auvergne.  It constitutes, moreover, all the wealth of the district, for it is planted on the village common.  This common was formerly only a hillside covered with brushwood.  The authorities had tried in vain to get it cultivated.  There was scarcely enough pasture on it to feed a few sheep.

“To-day it is a superb wood, thanks to the women, and it has a curious name:  it is called the Sins of the Cure.